THE ART OF EDUCATION 



•The 




THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NKW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



THE ART OF EDUCATION 



BY 



IRA WOODS HOWERTH, A.M., Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY 
OF CALIFORNIA 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1912 

AU rights reserved 






Copyright, 1912, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1912. 



J. B. Cuahing Co. — Berwick & Smitli Co, 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



CCI.A32U698 



TO THE MEMORY 
OF MY MOTHER 



PREFACE 

So many books have been written on the subject of 
education that one feels almost like apologizing for 
adding another to the list. But, of course, the apology, 
in any case, would involve the excuse that " no other 
book quite meets" a certain demand, or " quite sup- 
plies " a particular need ; and perhaps this conviction, 
so naturally to be expected of an author, will receive 
charitable consideration by even the critical reader. 
The most that I will venture to say concerning this 
book is that it is meant to substitute a scientific for a 
sentimental conception of the social meaning and value 
of education, and that the ideas advanced have proved 
to be inspiring, and practically helpful, to many who 
have heard them expressed in the form of lectures. 

It is obvious enough that the interest and enthusiasm 
of the teacher are dependent to some extent upon his 
ideas with respect to the importance and dignity of the 
work in which he is engaged. Public respect for educa- 
tion, too, and for the teacher, is affected more or less 
by the prevalent opinion concerning the relative stand- 
ing of the art of education among the various other 
occupations. With the object of contributing to the 

vii 



Vm PREFACE 

formation in the mind of teachers and the general pub- 
lic of a true estimate of the rank of education among 
the arts, and its relative dignity, I have devoted the first 
chapter to an attempt to construct a valid classification 
of the arts, in which the place and relation of education 
shall be revealed. I base this classification on potential 
social utility which, as the reader will see, is also the 
basis of complexity and relative difficulty of successful 
practice. So classified, the arts arrange themselves in 
an ascending scale, and education is shown to occupy a 
place subordinate only to those infinitely difficult arts 
the object of which is the transformation of social 
groups, and of society itself. It is the highest of the 
vital arts, outranking the mechanical arts, and even the 
so-called " fine arts." 

With whatever additional respect for education the 
results of this classification may awaken in the mind of 
the reader, and with whatever inspiration they may fur- 
nish if he happen to be a teacher, the book proceeds to 
inquire into the essential nature of education consid- 
ered as an art, to specify and analyze the motive forces 
involved in it, to determine which of these are most 
important, and to discuss some of the methods that may 
best be employed to direct the educational forces to 
approved individual and social ends. 

Education being an art, it must share the character- 
istic common to all the arts, namely, the control of the 
forces of nature. It is distinguished, in part, from the 



PREFACE IX 

Other arts by the particular set of forces with which it 
deals, namely, those that impel to action, the feelings. 
They are the true " educational forces." Chief among 
them is desire. Desire is the mainspring of action, the 
fundamental educational force. To educate is practi- 
cally to control desire. 

Desire, however, awakens toward anything that seems 
capable of satisfying it a peculiar feeling known as in- 
terest ; and, likewise, interest, if sufficiently strong, inva- 
riably occasions desire and impels to action. Desire, 
then, and hence activity and development, may be con- 
trolled through interest; and education practically 
reduces itself to a process of controlling and directing 
interest. 

Interest, of course, invariably attaches itself to an 
object. The objects of interest are material and spirit- 
ual or ideal. These are embraced by the term environ- 
ment. They constitute the sole means of influencing 
desire and interest, and hence the sole means of educa- 
tion. We are led, therefore, to the consideration of 
education as the art of manipulating the objects of the 
environment so as to awaken interest and to induce 
the activities appropriate to physical, mental and moral 
development. The forms of manipulation are mani- 
fested in educational methods, and a chapter is devoted 
to the most approved methods of controlling interest. 

The primary end to which the control of interest 
should be directed is, of course, individual development. 



X PREFACE 

This is measured by the degree of the individual's 
adjustment to the various phases of his environment. 
Such adjustment the reader will find discussed in the 
chapter on '' The Finished Product." But to avoid 
misapprehension, and to preserve the broader educa- 
tional outlook, it seemed necessary to include a discus- 
sion of the ultimate end of education, which, as in the 
case of all the arts, is Life. 

With the assignment of education to its proper place 
among the arts, the determination of its essential nature, 
the valuation of its methods, and a discussion of its 
immediate and remote ends the book is concluded by 
some more or less obvious remarks in regard to the 
personal elements necessary to the successful practice 
of the educational art. These are knowledge, skill and 
interest, knowledge being the foundation element. In 
education, as elsewhere, " knowledge is power." 

This brief, and perhaps repellently technical, account 
of the substance of the book ought to be of assistance 
in the way of enabling the reader to begin its study 
with a comprehension of the discussion as a whole, and 
with some conception of its unity. 

Whatever faults the book may contain, and no doubt 
they are many, the author will be pardoned for enter- 
taining and expressing the conviction that it will be 
enlightening to the general reader who is interested in 
education, and particularly stimulating and inspiring to 
those who are teachers, actual or prospective, for whom 



PREFACE XI 

it is more especially designed. My friend Professor 
Paul Monroe, of Columbia University, has done me 
the kindness, which I here gratefully acknowledge, to 
read the manuscript and to offer a few suggestions in 
regard to possible improvements. My indebtedness to 
others is sufficiently acknowledged, I think, in foot- 
notes and references. 

I. W. H. 
Berkeley, Cal., 
August 1 6, 191 2. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Preface 



vu 



CHAPTER I 
The Place of Education among the Arts 

1 . Purpose of the Chapter ..... 

2. Meaning and Scope of Art .... 

3. Popular Classification of the Arts Illogical 
Social Utility as a Basis of a Logical Classification 
Art and Material Phenomena .... 
Classification of the Forms of Matter and of the Arts 
The Relation of Complexity to Utility 
The Physical Arts .... 
The Vital Arts .... 
The Social Arts .... 



9- 

10. 

II. 
12. 
13- 



Diagrammatic Arrangement of the Arts 
The Place of Education . 
Education and the Fme Arts . 



PAGE 
I 

2 

3 

4 

5 
6 

7 

9 
12 

18 

19 
20 

21 



I. 

2. 

3- 

4- 

5- 
6. 

7- 



CHAPTER II 

The Essential Nature of Education 

Purpose of the Chapter . 

The Universality of Change 

Change and Phenomena . 

The Causes of Phenomena 

The Common Characteristic of the Arts 

Education the Control of the Educational Forces 

Conclusion ....... 



CHAPTER III 

The Dynamic Elements in Education 

1 . The Fundamental Fact in Education 

2. Kinds of Activity ...... 



26 
27 
29 

31 
34 
36 
37 



40 
41 



xni 



XIV 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



3. The Somatic Forces 

4. The Psychic Forces 

5. The Fundamental Educational Force 

6. Education Chiefly Concerned with Interest 

CHAPTER IV 
Interest 

1. The Nature of Interest 

2. Kinds of Interest 

3. Other Forms of Interest 

4. Summary and Conclusion 

CHAPTER V 
Interest and the Problems of Education 

1. Education and Problems of Interest 

2. Interest and Attention 

3. Interest and Memory 

4. Interest and Thought 

5. Interest and the Will 

6. Interest and Discipline 



PAGE 
42 

45 
50 
53 



56 
62 

63 
65 



67 
68 
72 

n 
78 
80 



I. 

2. 

3- 
4- 

5- 
6. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Doctrine of Interest 

The Doctrine Stated 86 

Interest and Play 87 

Interest and Effort 91 

Interest and Duty 9^ 

All Necessary Work May Be Made Interesting ... 99 

Conclusion 102 



CHAPTER VII 
Methods of Arousing Interest 

1. The Problem of the Teacher . . . . 

2. Life as Interest and a Succession of Interests . 



103 
105 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



XV 



3- 
4- 
5- 

o. 

7- 
8. 

9- 
lo. 

II. 



Begin with Native Interests 

Select Commendable Interests ..... 

Associate New Ideas and Objects with Those That are 
Natively Interesting ....... 

Interest and Use ........ 

Awaken Interest in Remote Ends ..... 

Appeal to As Many Senses As Possible .... 

Arrange the Work So That It Will End in Pleasure 
Approve When Possible ...... 



IC7 
III 

114 

117 
117 
118 



Be Interesting 119 



CHAPTER VIII 



The Factors of Education 



1. The Meaning of Factors . 

2. Heredity 

3. Environment . 

4. The Objective Environment 

5. Environment and Action 

6. Institutional Factors 

7. The School Environment 

8. The School and the Home 

9. The School and the Church 

10. The School and the State 

1 1 . The School and the Community 



122 
123 
127 
128 

131 
133 
133 
136 
138 
140 
141 



CHAPTER IX 



Ideals as a Factor in Education 

1. The Subjective Environment . 

2. The Objects of Interest . 

3. Ideas and Ideals .... 

4. The Educational Value of Ideals 

5. Explanation of the Effects of Ideals 

6. The Control of Ideals 

7. Personal Ideals of Success 

8. Ideals of Service 



144 

145 
146 
149 

153 
154 
157 
416 



XVI 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER X 



The Finished Product 



I. 


Definition 


2. 


Health .... 


3- 


The Use of the Fundamentals 


4. 


The Desire for Knowledge 


5- 


Useful Knowledge . 


6. 


The Power to Think 


7- 


Power of Expression 


8. 


Power and Inclination to Wor 


9- 


Public Spirit . 


10. 


The Social Graces . 


II. 


Family Duties . 


12. 


Love of the Beautifiil 


13- 


Righteousness . 


14. 


Conclusion 



PAGE 
167 
172 

173 
177 
178 
182 
189 
191 
194 

197 
199 
200 
201 



CHAPTER XI 
The Ultimate End of Education 

1. The End of Life ........ 202 

2. The Will to Live ........ 203 

3. The Time Element in Life ...... 203 

4. The Qualitative Element ...... 206 



CHAPTER Xn 
The Artist Teacher 

1. An Artist Teacher . . . . . . . ,211 

2. Requisites of the Artist Teacher 213 

3. Knowledge . . . . . . . . .216 

4. Skill .......... 222 

5. Interest . 228 

6. Conclusion 230 



THE ART OF EDUCATION 



THE ART OF EDUCATION 

CHAPTER I 

THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 

What nobler service can one render to the state than that of training 
and instructing the rising generation? — Cicero. 

"What artists do you think most worthy of admiration, those who form 
images destitute of sense and movement, or those who produce animated 
beings endowed with the faculty of thinking and acting? 

— Socrates. 

I. Purpose of the Chapter. — There can be nothing, I 
think, more inspiring and helpful to those who are 
engaged in the work of education, or more illuminating 
to those who are not, than a correct conception of its 
real dignity and importance. Sentimental ideas with 
respect to education — " education, the bulwark of our 
liberties," **the schools, the hope of the country," and the 
like — are not sufficient. A reasoned conclusion with re- 
gard to the place among the arts that belongs properly to 
education, should take the place of pious opinion. 

It is sometimes said that education is the highest art. 
Colonel Parker used to say, " Education is the highest 
art in the world." If that were really true, what an 
inspiring thought it would be ! A proposition so signifi- 
cant should be capable of logical demonstration. We 



2 TKE ART OF EDUCATION 

listen in vain, however, to hear such a declaration coupled 
with convincing proof. It is uttered sometimes as a 
dogma, sometimes as a self-evident truth, and is usually 
addressed to teachers, by those who know little about 
education, with the generous purpose of impressing and 
inspiring them with a sense of the loftiness of their call- 
ing. Far better than sentimental laudation of teaching 
would be a demonstration, on purely logical grounds, 
of the place or rank to which education must necessarily 
be assigned among the arts. That alone will compel 
the recognition and respect properly due to the art of 
education. To present such a demonstration is the pur- 
pose of this chapter. 

2. Meaning and Scope of Art. — The true place of 
education among the arts can be discovered only by 
analyzing the conception of art and classifying the arts 
upon the basis of some fundamental and accepted prin- 
ciple. The first thing, then, is to consider the meaning 
and scope of the word " art." 

Art, to most minds, signifies the fine arts — painting, 
sculpture, poetry, music, and the like. The word, how- 
ever, has a much broader meaning. There are mechan- 
ical, industrial, or useful arts as well as the liberal, polite, 
or fine arts. But the industrial arts and the fine arts, 
broadly speaking, cover the whole range of human 
activities. Art, then, includes all the efforts of man to 
achieve results. It may be defined as the endeavor to 
realize an idea, ideal, or purpose through the conscious 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 3 

employment of means. It is therefore identical and co* 
extensive with intelligent action. A classification of the 
arts, in which alone the true place of education can be 
revealed, must therefore be, in effect, a classification of 
the various human occupations. 

3. Popular Classification of the Arts Illogical. — Else- 
where it has been pointed out that the familiar classifi- 
cation of the arts into the '* Fine Arts " and the " Use- 
ful Arts " is illogical.^ The fine arts are useful for 
exactly the same reason that anything is useful ; they 
satisfy desire ; and if the useful arts are not fine, more's 
the pity. They might be fine, should be so, and do be- 
come so in proportion to the degree in which intelligence 
and the element of beauty enter into them. In a world 
of right human relations, in which joy in work could 
become everywhere a reahty, the most menial occupation 
might be lifted by inteUigence, beauty, and pleasure to 
the level of a fine art. From the standpoint of social 
well-being no necessary occupation is menial. Its end 
is Hfe, and the end dignifies both the work and the 
worker. This does not mean that all the arts are of equal 
rank. That cannot be. Ditch-digging and hod-carrying 
can never be raised to an equality with landscape gar- 
dening and architecture. They are not equally service- 
able to human needs, and they do not offer equal oppor- 
tunity for intelligence and the play of the creative 

1 See an article by the present author on " The Classification of the 
Arts," Pop. Sci. Mo., Vol. LXX (May, 1907), pp. 429-436. 



4 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

imagination. They are comparatively low forms of art. 
It is conceivable, however, that some elements of imagi- 
nation and pleasure might be imparted to even the 
lowest occupations if the conditions of these occupations 
were made human, and if a true conception of their re- 
lation to the well-being of mankind prevailed. At any 
rate, the classification of the arts into ''Fine" and "Use- 
ful " is merely conventional, and is of little scientific 
value. "Beauty," says Emerson, "must come back to 
the useful arts, and the distinction between the fine and 
the useful arts be forgotten. If history were truly told, 
if Hfe were nobly spent, it would no longer be easy or 
possible to distinguish the one from the other. In na- 
ture, all is useful, all is beautiful." ^ 

4. Social Utility the Basis of a Logical Classification. — 
If, then, we reject this popular classification of the arts, 
we must find a basis or principle for another more sig- 
nificant and logical classification. This basis or prin- 
ciple is best deduced from a true conception of the 
end or object of the arts. The end of all the arts is 
the same ; namely, the promotion of human well-being. 
Some, indeed, pretend that the so-called " Fine Arts " 
exist for Art's sake, and that they ought not to be 
subjected to so prosaic, some would say vulgar, a test 
as utility ; but this is short-sighted. Art's " sake " is 
not final. " Man is the measure of all things," in 
more senses, perhaps, than Protagoras conceived. The 

1 Complete Works, Concord Edition, Vol. IV, pp. 367-368. 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 5 

true test of any activity, individual or social, is its effect 
upon human life. The only sound and deeply signifi- 
cant principle of a classification of the arts is, there- 
fore, the principle of potential social utility. 

5. Art and Material Phenomena. — Accepting poten- 
tial social utility, then, as the true basis of a classifica- 
tion of the arts, we may pass to the consideration of 
an important fact. That fact is that in the practice 
of an art, no matter of what kind, material phenomena 
are involved. As a rule some form of matter is con- 
sciously employed. Matter is the medium in which 
and through which the ideas, ideals, purposes, and 
effects of art are objectified. As embodied in material 
form these ideas, etc., are called art products. They 
include all the works of man's hands, from the simplest 
flint implement of the savage to the complex industrial 
machine ; from the hut of the primitive man to the 
Parthenon ; from the rude drawing of the cave dweller 
to the Sistine Madonna. No art can divorce itself 
entirely from matter. Painting is impossible without 
canvas, brush, and pigment. The sculptor cannot 
" body forth " his ideal conceptions without his chisel 
and his marble, nor the architect create his " poem in 
stone " without the material means of building. Even 
the poet, with his "eye in a fine frenzy rolling," is 
dumb without the material means of utterance. ** Lan- 
guage is the marble in which the poet carves." Music, 
the most ideal of the arts, is no exception to the rule. 



6 THE ART OE EDUCATION 

Song is impossible in a vacuum, and the musician, no 
matter how skillful, is powerless without his instrument. 
Even the intellectual arts have a physical basis. Art, 
therefore, and material phenomena are inseparable. 
A classification of the arts must be in effect a classi- 
fication of the forms of matter. 

6. Classification of the Forms of Matter and of the 
Arts. — Now, as to the forms of matter, we have a 
familiar classification. Matter is inorganic, organic, 
and, to use Mr. Spencer's expression, superorganic. 
The inorganic may be allowed for our present purposes 
to include all non-living substances, the organic all 
living things, and the superorganic all social groups. 
These three divisions of matter are based upon, and 
stated in, the order of their complexity. Organic 
matter is more complex than the inorganic because 
it involves the life principle; and the superorganic 
is still more complex because it involves the principle 
of association. As the inorganic, the organic, and the 
superorganic cover all forms of matter with which the 
arts must deal, there should be three corresponding 
divisions of the arts — those which are employed on 
non-living substances, those which realize their objects 
in living things, and those which seek to realize their 
ideas and ideals in social organisms. These three 
grand divisions of the arts I have called the Physical 
Arts, the Vital Arts, and the Social Arts. Thus we 
have a classification of the arts based upon the com- 



. THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 7 

plexity of the material with which they deal. What 
relation has this complexity to potential utility ? 

7. The Relation of Complexity to Utility. — As to the 
relation between the complexity of the matter employed 
by the arts and the potential utility of the arts them- 
selves, I think it can be shown that they vary directly. 
Auguste Comte, the French philosopher, laid down these 
two principles: (i) "The practical applications of the 
sciences increase with their complexity " ; and (2) " Phe- 
nomena grow more susceptible to artificial modification 
with the increasing complexity of the phenomena." ^ 
Comte's classification of the sciences, it will be remem- 
bered, was based on increasing complexity (and de- 
creasing generality). It is as follows : Mathematics, 
Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Physiology (Biology)^ 
Social-physics (Sociology). A question might be raised 
as to whether mathematics is a science in the same sense 
as astronomy and the others, but, leaving that aside, the 
principle that the practical applications of the sciences 
increase with their complexity amounts, when consid- 
ered with this classification, to an assertion that the vital 
and the social sciences have, through their correspond- 
ing arts, a wider range of application than the physical 
sciences. But application to what ? Obviously to phe- 
nomena. But phenomena, according to Comte's second 
principle, are more susceptible to artificial modification 
the more complex they are ; that is, more can be done 

1 See Ward's " Applied Sociology," pp. 8-9. 



8 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

with them, the greater the effects for good or ill that 
can be produced. The arts, then, that deal with the 
most complex phenomena are potentially the most use- 
ful. The physical arts deal with the least complex 
phenomena, the vital arts with those next in order, and 
the social arts with the most complex of all. The vital 
arts are, therefore, more useful potentially than the 
physical, and the social arts are potentially the most 
useful of all. We, therefore, arrive at the conclu- 
sion that a classification of the arts based upon the 
relative complexity of the phenomena with which 
they deal is a classification based on relative potential 
utility. 

It is interesting to observe, too, that the complexity 
of an art, that is to say, of the material with which it 
deals, determines the difficulty of its practice. It is 
easier to fashion wood, bronze, or stone into a precon- 
ceived shape or form than to modify a Uving thing, 
plant or animal, until it represents a preconceived ideal. 
An inorganic form of matter " stays put " ; it does not 
react by virtue of inherent forces tending toward its 
natural development, against the efforts of the artist to 
effect its transformation. The vital arts, therefore, de- 
mand more skill than the physical, and the social more 
than the vital. The greater the complexity of the art, 
the greater is the opportunity it affords for the display 
of intelligence. Hence our classification of the arts on 
the basis of the complexity of the material with which 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 9 

they deal is a classification not simply on the basis of 
potential social utility, but also upon difficulty of prac- 
tice, or amount of intelligence demanded, as well. 

We have shown, then, that, on the basis of complexity, 
potential utiUty, and difficulty of practice, the arts 
may be divided, in an ascending order, into the phys- 
ical arts, the vital arts, and the social arts. These 
divisions must be further analyzed to reveal the true 
place of education. 

8. The Physical Arts. — Taking up the first division, 
the physical arts, it is obvious that they must include 
all the arts that realize their conceptions in inorganic 
forms of matter. The best examples are those in which 
ideas are objectified in the various non-living substances 
— wood, stone, iron, copper, brass, marble, etc. Such 
arts obviously vary in the degree of their complexity 
with respect to the means employed. The industrial 
arts of the primitive man, for instance, were exceedingly 
simple in comparison with the industrial arts of to-day. 
The only essential difference, however, is occasioned 
by the modern use of the machine. The primitive man 
was a toolmaker and a tool user, a handicraftsman par 
excellence. The artisan of to-day is a machine laborer. 
The machine, however, is only a combination of tools 
operated by some natural force. Its seven mechanical 
principles may be reduced to two, the lever and the in- 
clined plane. The principal division of the physical arts 
is, then, into the hand arts and the machine arts, manu- 



lO THE ART OF EDUCATION 

facture and machinofacture, the handicrafts and the 
mechanical trades. 

But manufacture and machinofacture include not 
merely the mechanical arts, but the "fine" arts as well. 
There is no essential difference, so far as material, 
means, and end are concerned, between the art that 
makes a useful thing (useful, of course, in the narrow 
sense) and a beautiful thing. The wide distinction 
that may and does separate the work of the shop from 
the work of the studio is adventitious. They are one in 
kind. Intelligence, love of the beautiful, conditions 
making joy in labor possible, will transform the shop 
into a studio, and the artisan into an artist. In a strictly 
rational classification of the arts, then, architecture must 
take its place with the building trades, painting with 
the decorative arts, and the sculptor must stand with the 
molder and the stone mason. 

This inclusion of the fine arts in the physical arts along 
with the mechanical trades will not seem so surprising if 
the fact be taken into consideration that the fine arts 
themselves have grown out of the physical arts. '* Art, in 
the ages of custom," says Tarde, " when it is born spon- 
taneously without any wholesale importation, springs up 
from handicraft, * like a flower from its stem,' under the 
warmth of religious inspiration. This was the case in 
Egypt, in Greece, in China, in Mexico and Peru, and in 
Florence. Architecture, Gothic or otherwise, is born of 
the builder's craft; the painting of the fourteenth 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS II 

century, of illuminating, and illuminating, of the craft of 
the copyists ; sculpture, of mediaeval cabinet making, of 
the tombs of Egypt; modern music, of the ecclesiastical 
habit of intoning ; eloquence, of the professions which 
involve speaking, of bench and bar; poetry and litera- 
ture, of the different ways of speaking, of narration, of 
instigation, of persuasion." ^ 

Let not this inclusion of the fine arts in the physical 
arts seem to be a disparagement of the fine arts. It is 
not denied that historically they have ranked far above 
the arts of productive labor. They have been the arts 
of leisure. Joy and beauty have dwelt among them. 
Intelligence and genius have been their devotees. They 
have consequently been raised to a high level of perfec- 
tion ; some say the highest level. The art of Greece, 
it is said, will never be surpassed. Zeuxis, the Grecian 
painter, put grapes on his canvas so true to nature that 
the birds flew down to peck at them ; and Parrhasius, 
his pupil, pictured a curtain so successfully that it 
deceived even the practiced eye of Zeuxis himself. 
The marbles of Praxiteles are the models of all ages. 
Greek art, it is said, is perfect. But the arts of pro- 
ductive labor are so inferior that men seem to forget 
sometimes that they are arts at all. They have been 
practiced under compulsion. They bear the taint of 
serfdom and slavery. They have been divorced from 
beauty and pleasure. They have not invited genius, 

iTarde, " Laws of Imitation," New York, 1903, p. 354. 



12 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

but on the contrary they have repelled it. No wonder 
that, Hke Cinderella, they are scorned by their more 
fortunate sisters. But think of the possibilities of 
these arts when beauty is brought back to them, when 
their end is life, and the joy and intelligence of the 
laborer are manifested in his product. 

9. The Vital Arts. — Turning now to the second di- 
vision, the vital arts, these include, as has been seen, all 
the arts which reaUze their conception in living things. 
There are two kinds of Hving things, plants and ani- 
mals. There are therefore two grand divisions of the 
vital arts, those which deal with plants and those 
which deal with animals. They are the botanical 
arts and the zoological arts. Inasmuch as it would be 
distasteful to some to find man classed with the animals, 
we may make a concession to popular prejudice and di- 
vide the forms of Hf e into plants, animals, and man. The 
corresponding arts are the botanical (better the phyto- 
logical, from <t>VT6v, a plant), the zoological, and the 
anthropological. 

The phytological arts include agriculture, horticulture, 
forestry, landscape gardening, and the like. It will be 
surprising, and to some possibly it may seem ridiculous, 
to find agriculture, that is, farming, ranked above the 
fine arts. It must be remembered, however, that the 
principle of the present classification is not actual, but 
potential utility, not the existing conditions of the arts, 
but their ideal conditions. Farming is to-day, as a rule, 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 1 3 

empirical. It is seldom practiced consciously as an art. 
The farmer too often has little conception of the possi- 
bilities and the real significance of what he does. "The 
planter, who is a man sent out into the fields to gather 
food," says Emerson, "is seldom cheered by any idea of 
the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and 
his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, 
instead of Man on the farm." ^ But farming ideally and 
potentially is something vastly more than breaking " the 
stubborn glebe," scattering seed, and gathering in the 
harvest. It is the art of conceiving new and improved 
forms of plant Hfe and, by intelligent control of the forces 
operating upon that kind of life, of bringing these new 
forms into concrete existence. Scientific farming has 
already revealed some of the possibilities in this direc- 
tion. It has developed new varieties of grains and 
grasses, and by an improved adaptation of crops has 
made the desert to blossom as the rose. What is yet to 
be accomplished is best suggested by modern achieve- 
ments in horticulture. Men like Luther Burbank have, 
by intelligence and skill, developed new varieties of 
fruit and of flower, — the seedless orange, the coreless 
apple, the spineless cactus, the variegated poppy. They 
have originated new varieties, even new species, and have 
thus duplicated the work ordinarily attributed to the 
Creator. Farming practiced as an art, with the intelli- 
gence and the enthusiasm hitherto applied to the fine 

1 Complete Works, Concord Edition, Vol. I, p. 8;^. 



14 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

arts, would deck the world in new forms of beauty and 
multiply utilities almost beyond the possibility of the 
imagination to conceive. 

The botanical or phytological arts are, as has been 
said, limited in their application to plant life. Above 
the plants are the animals. They are a higher, a more 
complex, form of matter. They are the material in 
which the ideals of the zoological arts are realized. 
Hence the zoological arts must rank above the botani- 
cal arts. They include domestication, breeding, and 
training. The utility of these arts will not be ques- 
tioned. Who can estimate, for instance, the value to 
mankind of the domestication of animals ? " A time 
came," says Fiske, ** when man learned how to turn to 
his uses the gigantic strength of oxen and horses, and 
when that day came it was the beginning of such an era 
as the world had never before witnessed. So great and 
so manifold were the results of this advancement, that 
doubtless they furnished the principal explanation of the 
fact that the human race developed so much more rapidly 
in the eastern hemisphere than in the western. ... At 
the time when the western hemisphere was visited by the 
Europeans of the sixteenth century after Christ, its fore- 
most races, in the highlands of Mexico, Central America, 
and Peru, had, in respect of material progress, reached a 
point nearly abreast of that which had been attained in 
Egypt and Babylonia, perhaps seven or eight thou- 
sand years before Christ ; and this difference of nine 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 1 5 

or ten millenniums in advancement can be to a very 
considerable extent explained by the absence of horses 
and oxen in the western hemisphere. If such a state- 
ment surprises you, just stop to consider what an im- 
mense part of our modern civilization goes back by linear 
stages of succession to the era of pastoral life, that state 
of society which is described for us in the Book of Gene- 
sis and in the Odyssey ; then try to imagine what the 
history of the world as we know it would have been 
without that pastoral stage." ^ But bare utility is not 
the only element connected with these arts. When we 
consider the work of the breeder and the fancier, the 
possibilities of bringing into existence new animal forms, 
and of producing in these forms strange and pleasing 
effects by establishing new shades and combinations of 
color, the element of beauty is also seen to be present, 
potentially at least, in these arts as well as in painting 
and sculpture. The method of the breeder and fancier 
is artificial selection, which is far swifter in modifying 
a type than natural selection. Lord Somerville, in 
speaking of what breeders have done for sheep, says, 
" It would seem as if they had chalked out upon a wall 
a form perfect in itself, and then had given it exist- 
ence." ^ But if from the simplest beginnings, "while 
this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed 

1 John Fiske, " Essays, Historical and Literary," New York, 1902, Vol. 
II, pp. 252-253. 

2 Quoted by Darwin, " Origin of Species," Chap. I, p. 27. 



1 6 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

law of gravity, endless forms most beautiful and most 
wonderful have been, and are being evolved " under the 
operation of natural selection, until the world is clothed 
with the multiform varieties of life, who can set a limit 
to the possibilities of the process when it is brought 
under the control of human intelligence through arti- 
ficial selection ? We have hints, and only hints, of these 
possibilities in man's success in transforming the wild 
Indian fowl into the various domestic breeds, the wild 
species CanidcB into the numerous varieties of the do- 
mestic dogs, and in differentiating the various kinds of 
horses, hogs, sheep, and cattle, from their wild progeni- 
tors. 

It is in the training of animals, however, that we 
arrive at the highest of the zoological arts. For train- 
ing involves, not a modification of form or color, but a 
change in the mental constitution and conduct of the 
animal. Its results are not merely physical, but mental. 
It is directed, indeed, to the modification of the mind 
rather than to that of the body. It is psychic rather 
than somatic. Some reflection may be required to 
appreciate the true rank of this art, but, considered 
upon the basis of its potential utility, complexity, and 
difficulty, it must be recognized as superior to the *' fine " 
arts. Mr. John Burroughs may write of the " Reason- 
able but Unreasoning Animals," ^ but we know that 
a dog, for instance, is teachable, and to train a dog into 

1 The Outlook.^ December 14, 1907. 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 17 

an intelligence comparable to that of a human being, as 
has been done, is a greater art than to paint it or to 
reproduce its form in bronze or marble. 

But if the domestication and training of animals is so 
important an art, what is to be said of the training and 
education of the human being ? Man is an animal, the 
highest animal. " What a piece of work is man ! how 
infinite in faculty ! how noble in reason ! in form and 
moving how express and admirable ! in action how 
like an angel ! in apprehension how like a God ! the 
beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! " So 
said Shakespeare. Now the arts which have for their 
object the modification of the form and character of 
man, the anthropological arts, are the highest of the 
vital arts because they are exerted upon the highest, 
the most complex, form of life. The arts previously 
mentioned are, in a sense, mediate ; these are immediate. 
They include all the arts which are devoted directly to 
improving the individual type of man. 

Without attempting to enumerate the various anthro- 
pological arts, we may come at once to the art practiced 
in the school, — education in the narrow sense. The 
material here employed is the highest form of life. It 
is infinitely complex and plastic. It is not passive, like 
the material of the fine arts, but active in the highest 
degree. It reacts, sometimes by caprice, sometimes by 
open hostility, against the efforts of the artist, and thus 
interferes with his success. Infinite knowledge, patience, 



l8 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

and skill are required. The end is a perfect human 
being — perfection in body, mind, and character. The 
potential utility of such a being is immeasurable. Hence 
the education of the individual human being is the high- 
est of the vital arts. 

10. The Social Arts. — The social arts outrank even 
the vital arts, for their object is the realization, not 
merely of a perfect individual, but of perfect groups of 
individuals, — institutions, nations, societies. A group of 
individuals is more complex than a single organism. 
Social phenomena are more complex than vital phenom- 
ena. The social arts, therefore, since they undertake 
through the modification of individual lives and material 
conditions to bring into existence a preconceived ideal 
involving the perfection and well-being of groups, — an 
institution, a state, or humanity itself, — are obviously 
supremely complex and difficult. They afford opportu- 
nity for infinite skill and intelligence, and they must 
necessarily employ all the other arts in the realiza- 
tion of their purposes. They are the highest of 
the arts. 

As just suggested, the social arts are employed in 
institutional management and in other forms of social 
control, — in government, in statesmanship. Roughly 
speaking, they are institutional, national, and societal. 
An example of the institutional arts is the art of home- 
making. A beautiful home, actually existing, is grander 
than the picture of such a home, or a literary description 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 1 9 

of it, and she who creates that home is greater than poet 

or painter. 

"Who sweeps a house as for Thy laws, 

Makes that and the action fine." 

How this thought should dignify and glorify the primary 
work of woman ! When it is fully appreciated there 
will be no school without its classes in the domestic 
arts, and these classes will be filled by girls who have 
learned, or are learning, that there is true art and culture in 
setting a table, as well as in painting impossible landscapes 
or in murdering sleep with a musical instrument. The 
national arts are exemplified by government or states- 
manship, the art of a Pericles, a Gladstone, a Lincoln. 
When the ideal of such an art is not merely a perfected 
state, but an ideal humanity, it becomes societal. It is 
then applied to society as a whole, a complex of indi- 
viduals in their institutional and national relationships, 
for the purpose of effecting its transformation. It 
consists in organizing all the arts in a united effort 
to realize the loftiest conceivable ideal, a world of 
perfect human relationships. Such an art is, as yet, 
almost unrecognized. Its utility is almost wholly po- 
tential. But in such utility, in the complexity of its 
material, and in the difficulty of its practice, it outranks 
all the other arts. It is the supreme art. It is truly 
the art of arts. 

II. Diagrammatic Arrangement of the Arts. — I have 
now suggested a classification of the arts based upon po- 



20 



THE ART OF EDUCATION 



tential utility. It may be diagrammaticaUy arranged in 
the following form : 







8. Societal . . . 


8. World-building 






3. Social 


7. National ... 
6. Institutional 


7. Statesmanship 
^ 6. Management 




The 




'5. Anthropological 


5. Humaniculture 


Education 


Arts 


2. Vital 1 


4. Zoological . . 
3. Phytological 


4. Animal culture 
3. Plant culture 






I. Physical 


2. Machinofacture 
I. Manufacture 


2. Machine trades 
I. Handicrafts 





12. The Place of Education. — We have now shown, 
and by a glance at the diagram we may now see, the 
true place of education among the arts. Inasmuch as 
it involves an effort to realize in the individual human 
organism a preconceived ideal of body, mind, and 
character, it is a vital art. As such it stands at the top 
of this division. But scholastic education implies and 
involves school management as well as individual train- 
ing and instruction. It is institutional as well as indi- 
vidual. Education, therefore, in the broader sense 
transcends the limits of the vital arts and reaches up 
into the social.^ 

^ As intimated in the text, " vital " is used in this discussion in a broad 
sense. It includes the arts directed toward progressive changes in both 
body and mind. The purpose of the analysis, that is, to show the place of 
education, will be served best, it is thought, by making it as simple 
as possible. 

2 If society be considered as a collective being animated by its own life, 
and susceptible to influences consciously brought to bear upon it to de- 
termine its destiny, then we may properly speak of the education of 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 21 

13. Education and the Fine Arts. — The true place 
of scholastic education among the arts is not, then, at 
the top. It is not ''the highest art." And yet it ranks 
above any of the so-called ''fine" arts, which in the 
present classification lie chiefly among the physical arts. 
Ideally all arts are "fine" arts, hence the "fine" arts 
do not appear in the classification as such. If the world 
could once appreciate the fact that properly, that is 
scientifically, considered, education ranks above the 
"fine " arts ; and if the teacher could realize that the art 
he practices is potentially more useful, hence even more 
dignified and important, than any of the "fine " arts, we 
should begin to realize some of the larger possibilities 
of education. 

Lest the conclusion here drawn may seem after all to 
be a forced one, let me try to strengthen it by a con- 
crete illustration. Suppose we have before us a num- 
ber of artists ; let us say, a painter, a horticulturist, a 
literary artist, a sculptor, and a teacher. The painter 
has in his brain a conception of form and beauty, we 
shall suppose, of a flower ; that is, an ideal. The con- 
templation of this ideal conception gives him a pleasure 
which he would share with others. Being an artist, he 
can objectify his conception. So he takes a canvas, 
pigments, and a brush, and sets to work. We watch 

society. In this broadest sense of the term, education is not only a social 
art, but it is itself the art of arts, the art to which all other arts are sub- 
sidiary. 



22 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

him daub in the background. A few swift strokes, and 
the outHne of a flower appears. Finally there stands 
before us in indescribable beauty the identical form and 
color, embodied in the painted flower, that his mind 
had conceived. We admire it, and praise him for his 
art. 

But here stands another artist, the horticulturist. He, 
too, has in his brain a conception of form and beauty, 
let it be also of a flower. He is delighted by his con- 
ception, and would reproduce it for the delight of others. 
So he goes into his garden and sets to work. He is 
skilled in all that pertains to plant life. He plants and 
selects and grafts and forces growth and selects 
and plants again. Thus he modifies the type of flower 
upon which he works. By and by he invites you into 
the garden, and behold! the identical flower, conceivably, 
which appeared on the canvas of the painter lives and 
grows before you, puts forth its blossoms, gives off its 
perfume, develops its seed, and reproduces its kind 
generation after generation. Which is the greater art- 
ist, he who painted the flower or he who reproduced 
it as a living thing .? 

Now comes the literary artist. His conception is that 
of an ideal person. He cannot paint, but he can write, 
so he puts his ideal in a book. We read the book and 
weep over the sorrows of a Werther, suffer with a Jean 
Valjean, laugh at a Don Quixote, or grow polemical 
over the character of the " Melancholy Dane." Wholly 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 23 

fictitious persons are made to live and act before us, 
and they seem as real as any of the characters of his- 
tory. What a wonderful art it is! 

But the sculptor, too, conceives an ideal of beauty. 
He realizes that ideal in a block of marble. With his 
mallet and his chisel, he carves a figure so lifelike that 
in looking upon it the story of Pygmalion and Galatea 
becomes almost credible. He creates a Laocoon, and 
the Trojan priest and his sons writhe in agony in the 
coils of the serpents. In the Dying Gaul he catches 
and petrifies the anguish of Death. He immortalizes 
his conception of physical beauty in an Apollo or a 
Venus. This, too, is a marvelous art. 

Finally, here is the teacher, a teacher skilled in the 
art of education. This teacher understands the laws of 
physical, mental, and moral growth, as the sculptor 
understands the laws of form, the painter, the laws of 
color and perspective, the gardener, the laws of plant 
life. The conception that this teacher has formed is 
that of a human being, beautiful in form, in feature, 
and in character. He takes a child as the sculptor 
takes the marble, the painter the canvas, the gardener 
a plant, and by skillful control of the forces which oper- 
ate upon the " human plant " he directs its growth, 
physical, mental, and moral. Slowly he effects its 
transformation. Given time and opportunity, the ideal 
of his brain at last becomes an objective reality, and he 
can say, " Behold my ideal ! an ideal person realized by my 



24 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

art in living flesh and blood ! You have seen in the other 
arts ideals produced in marble, in plant, in books, and 
on canvas — I have made the Word flesh, to dwell 
among men ! " Is not education, then, the most diffi- 
cult of these arts ? Is it not the most complex ? Is it 
not the most useful? Is it not, then, in a very true 
sense higher than any of the " fine" arts? The teacher 
is a painter, but his colors are the white and pink and 
rose of living flesh, which are but imperfectly imitated 
on canvas. The teacher is a gardener, but a kindergart- 
ner. The teacher is a sculptor, but a sculptor of life. 
In the National Gallery of the Fine Arts in Florence 
is the statue of David, chiseled by the hand of Angelo. 
Its story has often been told. The stone from which it 
was created had been worked upon and thrown aside. 
When the artist was observed to stoop and examine it, 
he was asked, " Why waste time on a stone that has 
been rejected?" He replied in the immortal words, '' I 
see an angel imprisoned in this stone, and I must let it 
out." But in a more literal sense angels are imprisoned 
within the undeveloped forms of children. All the quali- 
ties conceived as godlike exist in them potentiall}^ Edu- 
cation is the art of realizing these qualities in a good, use- 
ful, and happy life. Therefore, for the teacher with artistic 
insight, skill, and devotion, it is possible to construct a 
statue which in beauty and usefulness will far transcend 
anything that is possible to the painter's brush or the 
sculptor's chisel. 



THE PLACE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE ARTS 2$ 

SCULPTORS OF LIFEi 

Chisel in hand stood the sculptor boy, 
With his marble block before him ; 

And his face lit up with a smile of joy, 
As an angel dream passed o'er him. 

He carved that dream on the yielding stone, 

With many a sharp incision ; 
In Heaven's own light the sculptor shone, 

He had caught that angel vision. 

Sculptors of life are we as we stand, 

With souls uncarved before us ; 
Waiting the hour when at God's command. 

The life dream passes o'er us. 

If we carve that dream on the yielding stone. 

With many a sharp incision, 
Its heavenly beauty will be their own. 

Their lives the angel vision. 

— Bishop Doane. 

^ Slightly paraphrased. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF EDUCATION 
Art is but the employment of the powers of nature for an end. — Mill. 

The one principle common to all forms of art and invention is that of 
causing natural forces themselves to do the work that man desires to have 
done. — Ward. 

Nourriture passe nature. 

I. Purpose of the Chapter. — Education, then, is an 
art as music, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, are 
arts ; as woodcarving, housekeeping, the breeding and 
training of animals, the cultivation of plants, are arts ; 
as the management of institutions, government, states- 
manship, are arts; as, indeed, all human occupations 
are arts. As such it stands, in a classification based 
upon potential utility to mankind and difficulty of prac- 
tice, at the head of the arts which deal with living things, 
and overlaps the highest division of the arts, the social. 
This fact should have, to say the least, an inspirational 
value. 

Having shown the place among the arts to which educa- 
tion should properly be assigned, and having thus sug- 
gested its true dignity and importance, it will be helpful 
now, I think, to differentiate education from all the other 
arts, and to show, if possible, in what the art of education es- 

26 



THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF EDUCATION 27 

sentially consists. This is necessary to the discovery of 
the principles which underhe the art of education, and 
is an important step in its successful application. We 
may begin with the consideration of two or three general 
truths. First, the principle of universal change. 

2. The Universality of Change. — Science has made 
the world familiar with the thought of general and con- 
tinuous change. Change is universal. All material 
things are in motion. The stars are not " fixed," suns 
and planets " wander through ethereal space," the 
world moves, the wind bloweth where it listeth, clouds 
form and reform, rains fall, rivulets trickle into streams, 
streams unite to form rivers, and rivers sweep onward to 
the sea. The waves roll and beat upon the shifting 
sands ; the coast line is submerged, is lifted above its 
normal level ; mountains and hills are washed and worn 
away. ** Nothing," said Darwin, " not even the wind 
that blows, is so unstable as the level of the crust of 
this Earth." ^ The instability of the earth characterizes 
all things upon its surface. Plants germinate, grow, 
bloom, fructify, and then fall back into the realm of the 
inorganic. Animals live, move, and die, and their 
bodies disintegrate and may reappear in part in grass or 
tree or flower. Man is no exception to the rule : 
'* Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." 
" Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, might stop 
a hole to keep the wind away." 

1 " Journal of Researches," p. 233. 



28 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

Nowhere is the law of change better exemplified 
than in human society. Social institutions are devised, 
serve a temporary purpose, are outworn and disappear. 
Populations expand, migrate, diminish, expand again ; 
or, it may be, perish. Nations wax and wane. The 
ever increasing number of inventions revolutionizes our 
modes of life. What marvelous changes characterize 
our own society ! With what lightninglike rapidity 
the scenes shift ! " Not many generations ago," said the 
old declamation, " where you now sit, encircled with all 
that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle 
nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. 
Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath 
the same sun that rolls over your head the Indian hunter 
pursued the panting deer ; gazing on the same moon 
that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky 
mate. Here, the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and 
the helpless, and the council fire glared on the wise and 
daring. Now, they dipped their noble limbs in your 
sedgy lakes, and now, they paddled the light canoe 
along your rocky shores. Here, they warred; the 
echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death 
song, all were here ; and when the tiger strife was 
over, here curled the smoke of peace." But all this has 
changed like " the baseless fabric of a dream." 

Men now living have witnessed almost the entire devel- 
opment of this country. A century ago we had no rail- 
roads, no steamships, no telegraph, no postage stamps, 



THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF EDUCATION 29 

no telephones, no phonographs, no street cars, no electric 
lights, no threshing machines, no reapers, no mowing 
machines, no kitchen ranges, no sewing machines, no — 
but why add to the list ? The change has been kaleido- 
scopic. And changes will continue *' through all the 
circles of revolving Time." 

" Before my breath, like blazing flax, 
Man and liis marvels pass away, 
And changing empires wane and wax, 
Are founded, flourish and decay." 

We live in a world of change, and there are no excep- 
tions to the law. 

3. Change and Phenomena. — Change, however, is 
but another word for phenomena. " " Phenomena," says 
Ward, " consist entirely of changes, i.e. of actual altera- 
tions of location in the objects that make up the uni- 
verse, ... it is a convenient as well as a correct view 
to regard the perceptible universe as made up of 
changes, which alone constitute the subjects of intel- 
lectual contemplation as well as the sole objects of 
conscient interest." ^ Phenomena, then, are necessarily 
the subject matter of all the sciences, and the domain 
of all the arts. 

Conceiving the world, then, as a vast mass of phe- 
nomena, it will be easily seen that it may be separated 
into two great divisions — the phenomena that result 

1 Ward, " Dynamic Sociology," New York, Second Edition, 1897, Vol. 
II, p. 77. 



30 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

from the operation of purely natural causes, and the 
phenomena that are occasioned by conscious, purposive 
action on the part of intelligent beings. These two 
divisions may be respectively designated as natural and 
artificial. The motions of the planetary bodies, the 
movements of the tides, the formation of clouds, the 
fall of rain, the natural growth of a tree, the grass, a 
flower — these and the like are natural phenomena ; 
while the building of a house, the production of food 
and clothing, the irrigation of desert land, the production 
of crops, the building of a railroad, the digging of a 
canal — in fact all the works of civilization — are artificial 
phenomena. Here we have clearly suggested the dis- 
tinction between Nature and Art. Nature includes "all 
phenomena that take place according to uniform laws, 
obey the mechanical axioms, and are impelled by true 
natural forces. Such phenomena are capable of being 
investigated, their results may be predicted, and the 
phenomena themselves may be modified at the will of 
rational beings who have made themselves acquainted 
with the laws that underlie them." Art, on the other 
hand, is manifested only in those " phenomena which 
result from such modification and control of natural 
phenomena by such rational beings." ^ Nature, then, 
is the subject to which art is applied, and the essential 
nature of art is its control and modification of natural 

1 op. cii., pp. 105-106. Here may be found a full discussion of the 
subject. 



THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF EDUCATION 3 1 

phenomena. The various divisions of the arts are con- 
cerned with corresponding divisions of such phenomena. 

Now, we saw, in the preceding chapter, that the arts 
fall naturally into three great divisions, the physical, the 
vital, and the social. Since each division of the arts 
applies to a special field of phenomena, there must also 
be three corresponding divisions of natural phenomena : 
the phenomena of inorganic nature ; the phenomena of 
plants, animals, and man ; and the phenomena of social 
groups. The phenomena of organic life, however, par- 
ticularly in its higher manifestations, are both biological 
and psychological ; or, perhaps, it would be better to 
say, biotic and psychic, since these latter terms do not 
imply a treatise upon such phenomena. Each of these 
divisions is of such scope and importance as to deserve, 
in a classification of phenomena, a place coordinate with 
physical and social phenomena. Accordingly we may 
analyze the great universe of change, the entire domain 
of natural phenomena, into physical, biotic, psychic, and 
social. 

4. The Causes of Phenomena. — All the changes or 
phenomena of the world are the result of causes. They 
are effects. There is no effect without a cause. Hence 
universality of change implies a like universality of 
cause. 

Now what are the causes which produce phenomena ? 
Here we come upon a question that is deeply philo- 
sophical, but into which, fortunately, it is not necessary 



32 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

to enter for our present purpose. But it is necessary 
to employ some term to designate the universal cause 
of change. I know of no better word than " force." -^ 
There are objections to the use of this term. We do 
not understand the essential nature of phenomena, and 
they are not finally explained by reducing them to the 
category of force. Our object, however, is not philo- 
sophical, but practical. We are not seeking the explana- 
tion of phenomena ; we are merely interested in the fact 
that they are subject to some extent to modification and 
control by intelligence. So, while for philosophic pur- 
poses the idea of force may be of questionable value, 
in discussing the arts we may adopt the common-sense 
mode of speech and employ the term force to designate 
the universal cause of change. 

Force, then, we shall define as that which produces 
or tends to produce change. There is universal and 
ceaseless change, hence, there must be universal and 
persistent force. Change implies motion. Objects move 
only when impelled to do so. The changes, for in- 
stance, which occur in the inorganic world, are produced 
by forces of attraction and repulsion, gravitant and radi- 

1 A term sometimes employed to designate that which occasions change, 
or will occasion it if counterbalancing forces are overcome, is " energy." 
But the word " force " is better for our purposes, particularly as its use is 
familiar in connection with the idea of physical, vital, and social phe- 
nomena. We are not in the least concerned, in this discussion, whether 
Force is the real cause of change or merely " an arbitrary conceptual 
measure of motion without any perceptual equivalent." 



THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF EDUCATION 33 

ant forces. The physical and chemical changes that 
take place in the structure of living things, resulting in 
growth, are occasioned by corresponding forces. The 
expression " social movements " is of frequent occurrence 
in our literature, but the minutest ** social movement " 
could not take place without the operation of forces 
that are called social. There can be no change, in- 
deed, without force, any more than there can be an ef- 
fect without a cause. The universality of change implies 
a like universality of force. 

Force, then, being universal, permeates the whole 
realm of art. It occasions all the changes of the phys- 
ical, biotic, psychic, and social world. Inasmuch as its 
manifestations are solely in the phenomena produced, 
we may analyze force into a plurality of forces corre- 
sponding to the previous-named divisions of phenomena. 
That is, our classification of phenomena in the preceding 
section is also a classification of the various kinds of 
force. Forces, then, like phenomena, are physical, bi- 
otic, psychic, and social. The physical forces are those 
that produce physical change. They are gravitation, 
heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and the like. The 
biotic forces are those that occasion growth and de- 
velopment in plants, animals, and man. They are the 
biological or life forces. The psychic forces are those 
represented by the mind, or more particularly by the 
affective faculties of the mind. The social forces are 
the impulses, desires, and interests of men, to which 



34 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

may be ascribed the changes which take place in 
society. 

The study of the physical forces in their various mani- 
festations is the peculiar function of the physical sci- 
ences, chemistry, physics, etc. ; and the direction and 
guidance of these forces into channels of human advan- 
tage is the particular province of the mechanical arts. 
So, also, the investigation of the biotic, psychic, and 
social forces falls within the realm of the biological, psy- 
chological, and social sciences, and their control is the 
proper object of the corresponding arts. 

5. The Common Characteristic of the Arts. — We have 
now arrived at a point in the discussion from which the 
common element of all the arts is revealed. Since all 
human occupations are arts, there must be some charac- 
teristic common to them all, otherwise they could not be 
classed together as arts. This common characteristic is 
the modification of phenomena through the control of 
force. A few illustrations will help to make this clear. 

What is the essential nature, for instance, of the task 
undertaken in a mechanical art, let us say in its dynamic 
manifestation, that is, invention ? The inventor recog- 
nizes the existence of some natural force, such as steam 
or electricity, and concludes that it may be employed for 
some practical purpose. He may not, does not, under- 
stand its real nature, but he devises an apparatus or 
machine by means of which he may change its direction, 
or store it up and liberate it at will. That is to say, his 



THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF EDUCATION 35 

primary object is the manipulation or control of a par- 
ticular form of force in order to make it serve a human 
purpose. He succeeds, and the result is a steam 
engine, or a motor. His invention is merely a device 
for the control of a natural force. 

In such a simple matter as the irrigation of a field 
exactly the same thing is illustrated. There must first 
be a knowledge of the conditions — that there is a sup- 
ply of water above the level of the field, that it will flow 
down upon the field if intervening obstacles are re- 
moved, that, by digging a ditch of the proper propor- 
tions and with a continuous incline, a sufficient head of 
water may be secured. In other words ; there must 
be a recognition of the possibility of controlling the natu- 
ral force of gravity and thus of making nature do the 
work of carrying and distributing the water. So a ditch 
is dug, and when it is completed the water flows, im- 
pelled only by gravity, and the work is done ; a natural 
force has been controlled by intelligence. All the phys- 
ical arts, even in their modern perfection, simply repre- 
sent man's success in the control of the physical forces. 

Now take as a further illustration the horticultural 
art. What is the gardener, or the farmer, really trying 
to do when he takes a seed, puts it into the ground, 
awaits its germination, and cultivates the growing plant.? 
He, too, is aware of the existence of peculiar natural 
forces, the forces inherent in the plant, and which, if 
left alone, would produce a certain kind or amount of 



36 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

development, but not exactly what he desires. He knows 
that the conditions surrounding the plant affect the ef- 
ficiency of these forces and the consequent growth of 
the plant. So, by determining these conditions, he con- 
trols in a measure the operation of these peculiar forces, 
and causes them to produce in flower, foliage, or fruit, 
something quite different from the product of nature 
acting alone. He, too, is merely seeking to control 
purely natural forces. 

And so, in the social arts, as, for instance, in the art 
of legislation, the primary purpose is to control the pas- 
sions, desires, and interests of men, again purely natural 
forces, so as to obviate unnecessary and wasteful conflict, 
and thus enhance the progress of society. 

The common and fundamental characteristic of all the 
arts, then, is their control by intelligence of one or more 
of the forces exerted in the production of natural phe- 
nomena. Art is the control of force. 

6. Education the Control of the Educational Forces. — 
It will now be easy to see the fundamental nature of the 
" art " of education. We have observed that the world of 
change or phenomena may be divided into physical, vital 
(including biotic and psychic), and social phenomena. 
Since to these several divisions of phenomena alone can 
"art" be primarily applied, the special field of educa- 
tional phenomena must be included within them. In as- 
signing education to its proper place among the arts, as 
was done in the preceding chapter, it was shown that this 



THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF EDUCATION 37 

field lies chiefly in the realm of vital phenomena and 
overlaps into the social. If, however, we limit our con- 
ception of education to its individual aspect and to man, 
the phenomena with which it deals lie wholly within, and 
are coextensive with, the anthropological division of 
vital phenomena. And since man is both body and 
mind, manifesting both bodily and mental changes, 
the phenomena of education are both biotic and psychic. 

But biotic and psychic changes in the individual are 
results and indications of certain biotic and psychic 
forces. There can be no modification of these changes, 
except as affected by such forces. Education, then, as 
an art, is simply the attempt to modify a special class of 
phenomena (the educational) through the control of a 
special set of forces (the educational). Its primary, 
indeed its sole, function, is the control of force. 

The foregoing analysis of phenomena and force, and 
the special field and function of education, may be 
graphically indicated by a diagram similar to the one em- 
ployed in representing our analysis of the arts (p. 20). 
It will take the following: form : 



Phenomena 

AND 



Social [-2. Psychic 

r 3. Anthropological 



Education 



. 2. Vital I 2 Zooloeical I t.- • 

Corresponding | ^ L i* idiotic 

„ I I. Phytological 

F^^^^^ [i. Physical 

7. Conclusion. — The art of education, then, is a pos- 
sibility only within the realm of living things, and there 
only to a limited extent. Possibly it may be exercised 



38 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

upon higher forms of animal life. We need not stop to 
discuss that question. We confine our attention to man. 
Now, the possibility of education lies wholly in the fact 
that the life of man presents natural phenomena, biotic 
and psychic, which are subject to modification. A child 
if left alone will, by virtue of purely natural and inherent 
forces, develop into a human being of some kind or other, 
manifesting a certain strength of mind and body, and a 
certain character. But experience early showed that 
the results following from letting the child alone are 
more or less unsatisfactory. It is likely to become dis- 
honest, lazy, cruel, criminal, anti-social. Hence, society 
early took the matter in hand, estabUshed the school (an 
invention), and seeks by means of it to determine the 
child's development, and the mental, moral, and physical 
quaHties it is to manifest in later life. " Education," 
says Compayre, " is the sicm of the rejlective efforts by 
which we aid 7iature in the development of the physical, 
intellectual, and moral faculties of man, in view of his 
perfection, his happiness, and his social destination." ^ 

The analogy between the education of a child and 
the cultivation of a plant, between child culture and 
plant culture, has been frequently drawn. It may now 
be seen that these arts are more than analogous ; they 
are in a sense homologous. Both are directed toward 
influencing the growth and development of a living 

1 Compayre, G., " Lectures on Pedagogy," pp. 12, 13. The italics are 
mine. 



THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF EDUCATION 39 

thing ; both seek to control organic changes ; both are 
limited to the transformation of the environment ; both 
must observe the laws of growth, and both seek to 
modify the products of nature. But while the resem- 
blances between education and the other vital arts, as, 
for instance, of the field and the garden, are more con- 
spicuous than those, let us say, between education and 
the mechanical arts, as of the shop and the studio, still 
there is a fundamental similarity existing among them 
all, even the most remote. They are all attempts to 
control the forces manifesting themselves in their own 
special fields of phenomena. 

The essential nature of education, then, appears in its 
effort to control a particular set of forces ; namely, the 
educational. These are the forces which occasion the 
phenomena of physical, mental, and moral growth. 
Education may, therefore, be defined as the art of con- 
trolling the educational forces in order to effect pro- 
gressive changes in the physical, mental, and moral life 
of the child. To ascertain what these forces are, and to 
devise and apply the best methods of controlling their 
operation to the end of producing an ideal type of 
human being, is to succeed in the practice of the art of 
education. Let us, then, undertake to segregate, and 
so far as possible define, the educational forces. This 
will occupy our attention in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER III 

THE DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION 

Using sweeping terms and ignoring exceptions, we might say that 
every possible feeling produces a movement, and that the movement is a 
movement of the entire organism, and of each and all its parts. 

— William James. 

Motives are processes always accompanied by feelings, and these feel- 
ings turn out to be those elements of the motive in which the real cause 
of activity is contained. "We would not will a thing if we were not 
stimulated by feelings. — Wundt. 

I. The Fundamental Fact in Education. — In showing 
that education, considered as an art, is essentially con- 
cerned with the control of a particular set of forces, we 
incidentally determined, in a general way, what these 
forces are. They are those, and those only, which 
occasion bodily and mental change. Both the scope 
and the possibilities of education, so far as the individual 
is concerned, are, as we have seen, limited to the 
possibilities of modifying the phenomena of individual 
life. For designating such phenomena, however, we 
have another expression, which is far more familiar in 
educational discussion. That expression is "activity." 
The phenomena of individual life are the various activi- 
ties of the organism, bodily and mental. Activity is 
also the necessary requisite of development. There 

40 



THE DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION 4 1 

can be no development without it. Thus the word 
" activity " has a double significance in education. As 
applied to the child, it is synonymous with educational 
phenomena, covering, as it does, all the results produced 
by the educational forces, and it is itself the necessary 
concomitant and basis of development. Activity is the 
dynamic principle of Hfe. It is therefore the funda- 
mental fact in education. 

2. Kinds of Activity. — Adopting the word " activity," 
then, in further discussion instead of ''phenomena," it 
is desirable to introduce another slight change in our 
terminology. The various forces and consequent 
changes of individual life we divided into biotic and 
psychic. These terms are too general. They do not 
focus attention upon the special subjects of change in 
education, the mind and the body. I know of no satis- 
factory substitute for the word " psychic," but to designate 
bodily phenomena, or activities and forces, the word 
" somatic " (from soma, body) is preferable to the term 
hitherto employed for that purpose. 

The activities, then, which are the scientific ground- 
work of education, being bodily and mental or psychical, 
the corresponding forces which the art of education 
undertakes to control are somatic and psychic. The 
somatic forces include all that produce changes in bodily 
organization, structure, and habits. The psychic forces 
are those which occasion mental changes, manifesting 
themselves in sensation, emotion, ideas, knowledge, and 



42 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

character. It i? impossible, of course, to separate en- 
tirely the manifestations of the one division from those 
of the other. Body is mind and mind is body. But 
the distinction is a customary one, and it is sufficiently 
accurate for our present purpose. 

3. The Somatic Forces. — The somatic forces are those 
that produce chemical and physical changes in the 
organism, resulting in metabolism, growth, and develop- 
ment. They are the forces that form and fashion the 
body. They are purely natural forces, as much so as 
steam or electricity, and they are subject to the same 
control. If we can conceive of educational effort put 
forth with the sole object of improving the body and 
bringing it to a form and condition which approximates, as 
nearly as possible, a state of perfection, the art of educa- 
tion will have become in that case and to that extent the art 
of controlling the somatic forces. Such educational effort 
would necessarily be expended primarily upon a careful 
provision and supervision of food, clothing, air, water, 
sleep, exercise, work, play, etc. The most careful atten- 
tion would be devoted to conditions of temperature, 
sanitation, etc., and an attempt would be made to 
remedy a bodily defect as soon as it was discovered. In 
short, scientific attention would be devoted to everything 
that is known or supposed to effect bodily changes. 

Of course, attention to the nourishment of the body, 
sanitation, etc., and to the modes and times of exercise, 
is not the only method of controlling the forces which 



THE DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION 43 

affect the development of the body. Psychologists 
have shown that all the emotions are somatic in their 
effects. Love, hate, joy, grief, fear, shame, and anger, 
as well as the subtler esthetic feelings, produce bodily 
reactions. Fear paralyzes; even joy may kill. The 
most fleeting emotion causes an afflux of blood to the 
brain. The most insignificant sensorial stimuH are said 
to result in more or less stimulation or inhibition of the 
action of the various organs of the body. Thus respira- 
tion, digestion, the circulation of the blood, the removal 
of waste material, all the physiological functions, in fact, 
are influenced by mental states. The effort to perfect 
the body, then, could by no means disregard; the mind. 

Because of the intimate relationship existing between 
body and mind, it is difficult, in fact impossible, to draw 
a hard and fast fine of distinction between the somatic 
and the psychic forces. We shall be sufficiently precise, 
perhaps, if we say that the molecular and muscular 
movements controlled by the sympathetic nervous sys- 
tem, as well as the physical and chemical changes 
already referred to, are occasioned by the somatic 
forces ; while such movements of the body as are or 
may be brought under the control of the will (voluntary 
actions) should be included under those occasioned by the 
psychic forces. Even as thus drawn, the line will vary. 

The control of the somatic forces is a phase of edu- 
cation which has hitherto been largely neglected. 
Locke is said to be the first educator to write a con- 



44 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

secutive and methodical dissertation on the food, cloth- 
ing, and sleep of children. There is a strong movement 
just at present in the direction of remedying this neglect ; 
but still little has been done, in the school or in the 
home, and especially in the great system of elementary 
education which the State provides. Food values, just 
what is necessary to produce muscle or nerve, how 
and when food should be varied, and the like, are 
subjects which one may hear discussed in cattle and 
hog raisers' associations, but they have not yet received 
due attention on the part of those who are engaged 
in the task of bringing up children. "The fattening 
properties of oilcake," says Spencer, " the relative values 
of hay and chopped straw, the dangers of unhmited 
clover, are the points on which every landlord, farmer, 
and peasant has some knowledge ; but what proportion 
of them know much about the qualities of the food 
they give their children, and its fitness to the consti- 
tutional needs of growing boys and girls? ... Of a 
score of townspeople few, if any, would prove ignorant 
of the fact that it is undesirable to work a horse soon 
after it has eaten ; and yet, of this same score, suppos- 
ing them all to be fathers, probably not one would be 
found who had considered whether the time elapsing 
between his children's dinner and their resumption of 
lessons was sufficient." ^ 

1 Spencer, " Education, Intellectual, Moral, and Physical," Humboldt 
Edition, Chap. IV, p. 305. 



THE DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION 45 

It seems obvious enough that the production of a 
strong, healthy, vigorous, efficient generation of men 
and women is impossible without systematic control 
and direction of the somatic forces. It is patent that 
this control is neglected to some extent by the school 
and the home, and to a larger extent by society at 
large. The inference, then, is unavoidable that society 
does not care deeply for the production of such a 
generation. That is to say, society is not sufficiently 
interested in education. After all is said about the 
defects of teachers, their lack of preparation, etc., the 
fundamental difficulty with modern education is the 
lack of public interest in the great art whose possibili- 
ties are as yet but dimly perceived. Surely the same 
scientific attention, if not more, with due regard to 
necessary limitations, should be devoted to the raising 
of children that is now directed to the production of 
prize-winning hogs, fancy cattle, and two-minute horses. 

4. The Psychic Forces. — In addition to the physical 
movements involved in the growth and repair of the 
body, life is made up of actions, voluntary and involun- 
tary. The strictly involuntary actions are few in num- 
ber, and need not, in this connection, arrest our attention. 
Voluntary action presents the most conspicuous feature 
of life. We go here and there ; we apply ourselves to 
this or that ; we sit, lounge, read, study, think ; we rise, 
stand, walk, run, work, and rest ; all voluntarily and in 
obedience to some impelling force. 



46 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

Now, when we ask what is the cause of a given ac- 
tion, what is it that impels us to any particular kind of 
activity, the answer must be : it is some form of 
psychic force. The psychic forces are the great dy- 
namic elements in human life. Let us see if we can 
determine what they are. 

In the preceding section it was pointed out that 
every intellectual state is accompanied by some kind of 
determinate physical manifestations. This is true of 
a sensation, as well as of an emotion or thought. 
** Every impression which impinges on the incoming 
nerves produces," says Professor James, "some dis- 
charge down the outgoing ones, whether we be aware 
of it or not." And again he says, " There are probably 
no exceptions to the diffusion of every impression 
through the nerve centres." ^ The fact here suggested 
is of fundamental importance. We must give it further 
consideration to appreciate its true significance with re- 
spect to action, and consequently with respect to edu- 
cation. The idea may be brought out, most clearly 
perhaps, by quoting a page from Spencer. 

" The feelings we distinguish as light, heat, sound, 
odour, taste, pressure, etc., do not die away without im- 
mediate results ; but are invariably followed by other 
manifestations of force. In addition to the excitements 
of secreting organs, that are in some cases traceable, 

1 James's Psychology, American Science Series, Briefer Course, New 
York, 1892, Chap. 23, pp. 370-371. 



THE DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION 47 

there arises a contraction of the involuntary muscles, or 
of the voluntary muscles, or of both. Sensations in- 
crease the action of the heart — slightly when they are 
slight ; markedly when they are marked ; and recent 
physiological inquiries imply not only that contraction 
of the heart is excited by every sensation, but, also, that 
the muscular fibres throughout the whole vascular sys- 
tem are at the same time more or less contracted. The 
respiratory muscles, too, are stimulated into greater 
activity by sensations. The rate of breathing is visibly 
and audibly augmented both by pleasurable and painful 
impressions on the nerves, when these reach any inten- 
sity. It has, even of late, been shown that inspiration 
becomes more frequent on transition from darkness 
into sunshine, — a result probably due to the increased 
amount of direct and indirect nervous stimulation in- 
volved. When a quantity of sensation is great, it gen- 
erates contractions of the voluntary muscles, as well as 
of the involuntary ones. Unusual excitement of the 
nerves of touch, as by tickling, is followed by almost 
uncontrollable movements of the limbs. Violent pains 
cause violent struggles. The start that succeeds a loud 
sound, the wry face produced by the taste of anything 
extremely disagreeable, the jerk with which the hand or 
foot is snatched out of water that is very hot, are 
instances of the transformation of feeling into motion ; 
and in these cases, as in all others, it is manifest that 
the quantity of bodily action is proportionate to the 



48 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

quantity of sensation. Even where, from pride, there 
is a suppression of the screams and groans expressive 
of great pain (also indirect results of muscular contrac- 
tion), we may still see in the clenching of the hands, 
the knitting of the brows, and the setting of the teeth, 
that the bodily actions developed are as great, though 
less obtrusive in their results. If we take emotions 
instead of sensations, we find the correlation and equiva- 
lence equally manifest. Not only are the modes of con- 
sciousness directly produced in us by psychical forces 
retransformable into physical forces under the form of 
muscular motions and the changes they initiate, but 
the like is true of those modes of consciousness which 
are not directly produced in us by the psychical forces. 
Emotions of moderate intensity, like sensations of mod- 
erate intensity, generate little beyond excitement of the 
heart and vascular system, joined sometimes with in- 
creased action of glandular organs. But as the emotions 
rise in strength, the muscles of the face, body, and Hmbs 
begin to move. Of examples may be mentioned the 
frowns, dilated nostrils, and stampings of anger ; the 
contracted brows, and wrung hands, of grief ; the smiles 
and leaps of joy ; and the frantic struggles of terror or 
despair. Passing over certain apparent, but only ap- 
parent, exceptions, we see that whatever be the kind of 
emotion, there is a manifest relation between its amount, 
and the amount of muscular action induced ; alike from 
the erect carriage and elastic step of exhilaration, up to 



THE DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION 49 

the dancings of immense delight, and from the fidgeti- 
ness of impatience up to the almost convulsive move- 
ments accompanying great mental agony. To these 
several orders of evidence must be joined the further 
one, that between our feeUngs and those voluntary mo- 
tions into which they are transformed, there comes the 
sensation of muscular tension, standing in manifest cor- 
relation with both — a correlation that is distinctly quan- 
titative ; the sense of strain varying, other things equal, 
directly as the quantity of momentum generated." ^ 

This passage from Spencer is arbitrarily selected. A 
similar passage might be chosen from almost any recent 
and complete discussion of psychology. The whole 
doctrine may be summed up in the expression "all 
consciousness is motor." Sensations and emotions in- 
variably produce internal activities, and, if sufficiently 
intense, they result in muscular contraction, movement, 
action. But sensations and emotions are forms of feel- 
ing. They are the species of which feeling is the genus. 
Speaking generally, then, we may say that it is the ten- 
dency of all forms of feeling to produce action. FeeUng 
is, indeed, the sole cause of action. The feelings, then, 
taken collectively, are the fundamental educational forces, 
the dynamic elements in education. They dominate, in 
so far as these are directly controlled. The feeHngs, 
then, the psychic forces, are consequent!/ the forces with 
which the art of education must be chiefly concerned. 

1 Spencer, H., First Principles, New York, 1885, pp. 213-214. 
E 



50 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

5. The Fundamental Educational Force. — We have 
now reached the conclusion that the dynamic elements 
in education, that is, those elements from which all 
voluntary bodily and mental actions spring, are the feel- 
ings ; that the feelings are the causes which produce 
action, development, and character; and that conse- 
quently they are the chief forces to the control of which 
the art of education should be applied. The feelings are, 
of course, of different kinds — impulses, sensations, 
emotions, desires, etc. The art of education, then, is an 
effort to control not a single force, but a number of 
forces. Now, in any attempt to control a set of forces 
it would seem to be a natural as well as a wise procedure, 
to find among them, if possible, the most important 
force, a dominant force, if it exist, and devote our at- 
tention and direct our efforts primarily to the control of 
that. Let us see, then, if there be not a fundamental 
educational force, a fundamental feeling, to which the 
art of education may be principally if not exclusively 
applied. 

Feeling practically, and perhaps essentially and 
originally, is a mere consciousness of an agreeable or 
disagreeable state of mind or body, that is, of pleasure 
or pain. *'The phenomena of the mind," says Ward, 
"all rest primarily on sensation, that property inherent 
only in nerve-matter, by which it acquired a conscious 
susceptibility to external impressions. They are primar- 
ily divisible into two classes, agreeable and disagree- 



THE DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION 5 1 

able. The former constitutes pleasure, the latter pain. 
Sensitive matter always seeks the one and shuns the 
other. This state of being which thus inclines to seek 
pleasure and shun pain is denominated desire. A de- 
sire is therefore a mere inclination to experience agree- 
able or to escape disagreeable sensations. But, while 
nothing but this bare state of being exists, no result is 
accomplished. This state of mind will not of itself se- 
cure the object desired; it neither affords pleasure nor 
relieves pain. Hence, and of necessity, there is always at- 
tending, and involved in, the state of mind a tendency 
to act. The two are inseparable. A desire cannot ex- 
ist without an inclination to act so as to secure the grati- 
fication of that desire. Yet it is clear that the act and the 
desire are not the same, since most desires are not followed 
by actions. But they are so intimately dependent that no 
act can be performed which does not spring from a de- 
sire." 1 In merely impulsive action, however, desire is not 
apparent. But when a satisfaction is once experienced, 
whether by conscious action or by impulse, it will, in the 
higher organisms at least, be retained in memory, and 
when thus recalled or reproduced it will again awaken the 
impulse to action. This representative feeling, with the 
sense of strain accompanying it, is the conspicuous form 
of desire, and this state of consciousness is one of the most 
general and prominent features of conscious mental life. 
Desire may originate either from sensations or ideas. 

1" Dynamic Sociology," New York, 1897, Vol. II, pp. 321-322. 



52 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

For instance, suppose a case of hunger. The mere 
sensation of hunger gives rise to a desire for food. An 
article of food is presented, and it intensifies the desire 
to eat. An examination of the article reveals conditions 
that lead the mind to the judgment that "it is not fit to 
eat," and this idea produces the desire to throw it away. 
But whether arising from sensations or opinions, desire 
is the mainspring of all voluntary action, the funda- 
mental educational force. 

If the foregoing be true, the art of education becomes 
practically the art of controlling desire ; the art of in- 
ducing the child to desire knowledge, skill, and bodily 
perfection ; the art of intensifying and directing the 
desires whose fulfillment results in physical and mental 
efficiency and in moral character. Is there, then, any 
general principle which may be applied in the art of 
controlling desire? If so, it must be regarded as a 
fundamental principle in education. 

That there is such a principle, I think, may be easily 
and clearly shown. By the time a child arrives at the 
ordinary school age, its feelings have become associated 
with objects, its memory is developed, and its conscious- 
ness has consequently become a theater of desires. 
The evaluation of things presented to its consciousness, 
with respect to their probable effect upon its pleasurable 
feehngs, which are the sole aim of its existence, has 
long since begun. Whatever promises to promote the 
sum total of these pleasurable feeUngs sustains, for the 



THE DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION 53 

time being, a vital relation to the child's Hfe. Such an 
object, fact, idea, or feeling is seen to be worth some- 
thing personally; it is desirable. Desire, then, implies 
an object, material or spiritual, and an unsatisfied state 
of consciousness due to its own unf ulfillment. 

Now, the fact that there is a painful element in desire, 
or at least a promise of satisfaction in its fulfillment, 
gives, with respect to that which satisfies it, or seems 
likely to do so, a peculiar state of consciousness, or feel- 
ing, ordinarily described as interest. "Our pleasures 
and pains," says Sully, "make up the interesting side of 
our experience. The objects of the external world only 
have a value for us in so far as they affect our sensibilities 
or touch our feelings." ^ Interest, then, accompanies 
desire. The child "takes an interest" in anything 
that promises to relieve the strain of the "tendency 
state " always occasioned by desire. 

Interest, then, while it does not always awaken de- 
sire, invariably accompanies it. Desire, indeed, is but a 
phase of interest. If we can control the interest of a 
child, we have thereby controlled his desires. This, 
then, is the principle to which we are led : Desire^ the 
fundamental force iii education, may be directed through 
interest. Education thus becomes primarily the art of 
controlling and directing the feeling known as interest. 

6. Education Chiefly Concerned with Interest. — We 
may then sum up the substance of this chapter as follows. 

1 " Teachers' Handbook of Psychology," New York, 1887, p. 279. 



54 THE ART or EDUCATION 

Education is the art of controlling the educational forces. 
These forces are somatic and psychic. The control of 
the somatic forces, although to a limited extent possible 
through external improvement of physical conditions, is 
chiefly effected by inducing the mental states which 
lead to the proper activities. The psychic forces are 
therefore the forces with which the art of education is 
chiefly concerned. These are the feelings. The 
characteristic state of feeling is that evidenced in volun- 
tary action by desire. Hence, desire, using the term 
in a broad sense, is the fundamental educational force. 
Desire, however, is invariably accompanied by interest. 
The control of desire is effected by the control of interest. 
Hence the art of education should be devoted, primarily 
and chiefly, to the control of interest. 

School life and life in general consist in the realiza- 
tion of interests. The world is so full of interesting and 
desirable things that life consists practically in the pur- 
suit of them. Throughout our entire existence we are 
so generally engaged in the pursuit of a succession of 
desirable ends and objects that we may almost say that 
interest and conscious existence are practically coexten- 
sive. Life may be represented not inaptly as a current 
of interest flowing unevenly in an irregular channel, 
now confined within its banks, now quietly spreading 
indifferently through marsh and field, and now with the 
same indifference pouring far and wide a devastating 
flood. It is the business of education to restrain this 



THE DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION 55 

current, to restrict it within proper limits, and to direct 
its flow toward those immediate ends, the reahzation of 
which contributes to well-being, individual and social, and 
toward that ultimate end that is usually expressed by 
the word " character." 



CHAPTER IV 

INTEREST 

True interest alone is the great mainspring that works long and 
wurely. — Rousseau. 

Interest is the greatest word in education. — Schurman. 

I. The Nature of Interest. — Having reduced the art 
of education, which seems at first thought so complex, 
to the simple process of controlling interest, we must 
now inquire somewhat closely into the nature of interest. 
The word is used in many different senses. We say, 
" I feel, have, or take an interest " ; "a subject possesses, 
or is full of, interest"; "it will be to my interest," 
etc. Thus it is applied to the object of interest as well 
as to the subjective condition occasioned by the presence 
of the object; to an abstract quality ; to a biological or 
psychological effect ; and to designate advantage, profit, 
or gain. All are familiar with the peculiar use of the 
word in commercial life, and of its plural form in modern 
political and economic discussion. When we speak of 
interest as that condition of consciousness that is 
aroused in us by the presence of an interesting object, 
there is, of course, a reference to the excitation of a cer- 
tain amount of feeling. It is with this feeling, the sub- 

56 



INTEREST 57 

jective phase of interest, that we are now chiefly con- 
cerned, and to that phase of it we shall, for the pres- 
ent, confine our attention. 

No special knowledge of psychology is required to 
recognize that there are two kinds of interests, native 
and acquired. A normal child, without any education 
whatever, will manifest a large number of interests of 
one kind or another; or, perhaps it would be better to 
say, it will manifest interest in a large number of things. 
A child is a bundle of appetites; and anything that 
promises to satisfy an appetite will engage its attention 
and incite interest. Its first interests are in whatever 
seems adapted to satisfy its craving for food. Very 
soon, however, it manifests an interest in moving objects, 
in anything that is strange or novel, in striking colors, 
and the like, and when it reaches the age of understand- 
ing it is invariably interested in stories that contain an 
element of mystery or adventure. All these are native 
interests. They are inherited. They are a part of the 

child's nature. 

Now these native interests all bear a close relation- 
ship to elemental needs, to individual and social preser- 
vation. Take, for example, an interest that is naturally 
manifested, not only by children, but also by adults, 
even though it be temporary, namely, the interest in 
moving objects. This is plainly an inherited and instinc- 
tive interest. It is found among the lower animals. 
The incident of Darwin's dog illustrates it. It was doz- 



58 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

ing on the lawn. An open umbrella was before it. It 
betrayed no interest until a breeze sprang up and the 
umbrella began to move. Then the dog commenced to 
growl and later to bark. An interest manifested itself as 
soon as the object began to move. An audience is listen- 
ing to a speaker. Some one enters, or rises to go out. 
Instinctively heads are turned. If we wish to realize 
how much this interest has had to do with the preserva- 
tion of life, we have but to reflect upon the dangers 
that beset wild animals, and the attitude that they 
must assume toward the objects about them. How 
watchful they are ; how attentive to strange sights and 
sounds ! They must be so, otherwise they would soon 
fall victims to their enemies. A moving object may be 
an enemy. An animal not naturally disposed to devote 
attention to moving objects would soon be eliminated in 
the struggle for existence. The manifestation of such 
an interest by wild animals or wild men is an element in 
survival. 

The interest just described is typical of all the native 
^ interests. They hold, or have held in the evolution of 
the race, a special and intimate relation to self-preserva- 
tion and the satisfaction of the elementary wants. They 
originated in accordance with the principle of advantage, 
and persist or decay in correspondence with their indi- 
vidual or social value. The use of some of them is not 
now apparent. As the body still contains vestiges of 
organs once serving a useful function, so the mind still 



INTEREST 59 

preserves relics or fragments of interests that were 
essential to life in the days of our remote progenitors. 
Originating spontaneously, these interests were seized 
upon by natural selection and became so deeply ingrained 
in the organism that their presence is felt and displayed 
even to-day. The objects of such native interests must 
have been, at some time in the course of evolution, of 
serious concern to the maintenance and progress of indi- 
vidual or social life. 

In the adult person, however, and especially among 
civilized people, there will always be found a large 
number of interests that are the products of individual 
experience. Objects, ideas, sciences originally repul- 
sive have somehow come to possess an absorbing 
interest. An interest thus permanently manifested 
in anything that is not natively interesting is an ac- 
quired interest. 

If now we turn to the derivative and acquired inter- 
ests, we shall find that in every case there is the same 
relation to preservation, well-being, or satisfaction, as was 
found in the case of native interests, or a similar relation. 
We develop an interest in things which have been found 
to be, or are thought to be, capable of satisfying a want, 
that is, of giving relief from a disagreeable feeling. 
In a like manner we become interested in whatever 
promises to increase, or threatens to decrease, the sum 
of agreeable states of mind. Such things obviously hold 
a special and intimate relation to the self which sepa- 



6o THE ART OF EDUCATION 

rates them from all other things. " Intimate relation to 
the self," — that describes exactly the object of interest. 
If we examine our own minds to discover why certain 
things interest us, why some things interest us at one 
time and not at another, and why some things interest 
us not at all, we find that in every case the things that 
interest us touch us closely. They are things that we can 
use, or things that of themselves furnish immediate sat- 
isfaction. They come home to us. They are of some 
personal consequence. How quickly, for instance, a 
conversation that possesses no interest for us at all 
suddenly becomes interesting if something is men- 
tioned that has an intimate relation to ourselves ! A 
good example is furnished by Dickens, in '' Nicholas 
Nickleby." Nicholas walked into a coffee room, where, 
as Dickens tells the story, " There was a rather noisy 
party of four gentlemen in a box by the fire-place, and 
only two other persons present — both elderly gentle- 
men, and both alone. Observing all this in the first 
comprehensive glance with which a stranger surveys a 
place that is new to him, Nicholas sat himself down in 
the box next to the noisy party, with his back toward 
them, and postponing his order for a pint of claret 
until such time as the waiter and one of the elderly 
gentlemen should have settled a disputed question 
relative to the price of an item in the bill of fare, took 
up a newspaper and began to read." He had not read 
twenty lines, and was in truth half dozing, when he was 



INTEREST 6 1 

Startled by the mention of a name. Why did a name 
attract his attention ? Why was his interest in the 
conversation aroused? It was the name of his sister. 
He thought the conversation was coming close to him. 
If, after listening for a moment, he had discovered that 
the name pronounced was really that of a stranger, his 
interest would probably have vanished and he would 
soon have been dozing again. 

And so if you find yourself interested in a conversa- 
tion, a book, a picture, a play, a sermon, no matter what 
it is, you will find, on reflection, that it is because there is 
something there that touches your life, something that 
has a meaning, a consequence, a significance, a value 
for you. The common element in all objects of interest 
is their power, real or supposed, to help or hinder self- 
realization, — to satisfy a desire, to minister to our 
wants, to prevent their satisfaction, or in some manner 
to affect the recognized immediate or remote needs of 
our existence. 

Life is a constant demand, a longing, a craving. The 
one continuous desire is for self-expression, or, as some 
may prefer, self-realization. Whatever promises to pro- 
mote, or threatens to interfere with, such realization be- 
comes by virtue of that fact a thing of interest. Interest, 
then, as it is manifested in an object, may be defined 
subjectively as that form of feeling which arises upon the 
recognition by the self that the attainment, or the evasion, 
of the object is necessary to its own realization. It is a 



62 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

feeling of the unique personal significance of an object, 
idea, or situation. ^ 

2. Kinds of Interest. — As already pointed out, inter- 
ests are both native and acquired. But there are other 
divisions of interest, which will be found to be of great 
importance when we come to discuss the doctrine of in- 
terest. One of these is the customary separation of in- 
terests into positive and negative. A positive interest 
is one that is derived from the consideration of an end 
or object that promises pleasurable feeling and that 
is desired for itself. A negative interest is one that 
arises from the repellant character of the thing contem- 
plated. The terminus of such interest promises a dis- 
agreeable mental state, hence negative interest leads to 
the avoidance of the object or situation in which the 
interest is manifested. Positive interest manifests itself 
in desire, negative interest in aversion. 

Still another division of importance is that of direct 
and indirect interest. An interest is direct when it at- 
taches itself immediately to the object that awakens 
it. A child is interested directly in its toys and games. 
A good story awakens a direct interest in the characters 

1 De Garmo employs the word " worth " instead of " significance " in 
defining interest (''Interest and Education," New York, 1902, p. 28), and 
so do others. But " worth," or " value," does not seem to recognize suffi- 
ciently the form of interest known as negative, for which see § 2. Dewey 
defines interest as " impulse functioning with reference to an idea of self- 
expression " {op. cit., p. 22), but that seems to be the cause (or shall we 
say the concomitant ?) of interest rather than interest itself. 



INTEREST 63 

involved. All native and acquired interests are direct. 
An indirect interest (also called secondary or mediate) 
is such as is awakened in an object because of the rela- 
tion that that obj ect sustains to a desired end. A boy may 
not be interested in digging in the ground for its own 
sake, but if the object is to find bait to be used in fishing, 
the digging presents an entirely different aspect to him. 
It then becomes interesting to him as a means. Promise 
a child an excursion in the woods, and he will at once 
manifest an interest in whatever is necessary to prepare 
for the excursion. Even the most disagreeable tasks, if 
seen to be necessary to the attainment of a desired end, 
become interesting. A genuine and intelligent interest 
in an end to be achieved (a direct interest) necessarily 
awakens an interest (indirect) in anything recognized as 
a necessary means to that end. Interests, then, are 
native and acquired, positive and negative, direct and 
indirect. The distinctions between these various forms 
of interest should be kept constantly in mind. 

3. Other Forms of Interest. — Although it is not of 
special importance to our purpose, we may call attention 
in passing to the Herbartian analysis of interest, as de- 
termined by its sources. These sources are Nature and 
Society. From Nature, according to Herbart, we derive 
three kinds of interest : empirical, speculative, and 
esthetic. An empirical interest is that which arises 
from the mere variety, novelty, and superficial attractive- 
ness of the objects of nature. A speculative interest is 



64 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

manifested when we begin to ask questions about the re- 
lations and causal connections of phenomena. An es- 
thetic interest follows from the contemplation of whatever 
is beautiful, sublime, or grand. 

An illustration may help to discriminate these differ- 
ent forms of interest. Once in passing through the 
woods I observed a bird limping and fluttering along 
among the leaves. I stopped to look at it. The novelty 
of its action attracted and interested me. ' This was an 
empirical interest. I concluded that it must have a nest 
near by, and searched until I found the nest. In the 
nest were four eggs, three of them beautifully marked, 
and one plain in color and much larger than the others. 
I examined the eggs with interest in their form and color. 
This was an esthetic interest. But I began to wonder 
what sort of bird had laid the large egg in the nest of 
another bird. Was it a cow-bird or a cuckoo ? My in- 
terest at once became speculative. 

From Society, according to Herbart, we derive inter- 
ests that are sympathetic, social, and religious. A sym- 
pathetic interest is aroused by putting ourselves in the 
place of another who suffers or enjoys. It is the basis 
of friendship, and is the sort of interest that we manifest 
in the characters of a play or a story. A social interest 
is that which is felt in the well-being of a family, a club, 
the community, the state, the nation, or any form of 
social aggregate. Upon this interest depends our public 
spirit, our patriotism, our cosmopolitanism. Finally a 



INTEREST 



65 



religious interest is manifested in the Deity, or in what- 
ever corresponds to our conception of the great Power 
outside of ourselves that makes for righteousness. 

It will be observed that in this classification Herbart 
confuses the sources of interest with the forms of inter- 
est. Empirical, speculative, and esthetic interests may 
be derived from art or society, as well as from objects of 
nature. The real sources of interest are things, — things 
material and intellectual, — and of these we shall speak 
when we come to discuss the environment, natural and 
artificial. The natural environment is nature, pure and 
undefiled. The artificial environment is nature as modi- 
fied by man. Both of these sources should be drawn 
upon in education. An interest should be aroused in 
the whole environment. Interest is life, and the breadth 
of life is measured by the range of interest. He who 
finds most interest in the largest number of sources is 
most a man. Hence, Herbart rightly attaches great im- 
portance to the development of a many-sided interest. 

4. Summary and Conclusion. — Interest is a form of 
feehng awakened by a recognition of the pecuHar rela- 
tionship of a thing to the fortunes of the self. It is of 
many different kinds, and there are different bases of 
analysis. The kinds that are of most importance in 
this discussion are the following : native and acquired, 
positive and negative, direct and indirect. The inter- 
ests of the division last named may also be called im- 
mediate and mediate, or primary and secondary. 



66 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

As interest is primarily a feeling, and feeling is the 
dynamic element in life, there must be an impulsive 
element in interest. This element is in fact the motive 
to all conscious action. We strive after the objects and 
ends that appear to us significant with respect to the con- 
scious purposes of our own lives — endeavoring to expe- 
rience them and make them a part of ourselves if they 
promise to promote these purposes, or to evade them if 
they threaten to thwart us. Hence life is a continuous 
evaluation of objects and experiences on the basis of 
their personal significance, and the interest resulting from 
such evaluation is the determinant of activity and of life. 

The chief task of education, then, is to awaken in the 
child this sense of personal significance with respect to 
all the approved subjects and activities of the school. 
A child is a perpetual interrogation. It brings to every 
task required, every lesson to be learned, these questions : 
What is this thing worth to me ? How does it affect 
me ? The teacher who is wise enough to present only 
that which is really worth something to the child, and 
is skillful enough to lead the child to recognize and feel 
its worth, is the successful teacher. 



CHAPTER V 

INTEREST AND THE PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION 

Interest ! One always returns to that in whatever way one may be 
treating the problem of education. — Claparede. 

The problem which lies before us is to study out ... the true relation 
of the principle of interest to those long recognized and well established 
canons suggested by the familiar terms, acquisition of knowledge, intellec- 
tual discipline, attention, memory, imagination, development of will power 
and growth in character. — C. A. McMurry. 

I. Education and Problems of Interest. — Education, 
then, as the art of human development, reduces itself 
practically, as has been shown, to the control of inter- 
est. It is the art of determining the quantity, quality, 
and intensity of the interests that, when translated 
into activity, form conduct, character, and life. This 
art involves not merely the supplanting of one ob- 
ject of interest by another and a higher object, but also 
the stimulation, encouragement, intensification, and ex- 
pansion of such native interests as are commendable, 
and the discouragement and eUmination of those inter- 
ests that, in their final manifestations, are hurtful to the 
individual and to society. To determine the nature, 
scope, and intensity of interests is practically to deter- 
mine Hfe. Hence the problems both of individual and 

67 



68 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

social life are largely problems of interest. This is es- 
pecially true of the problems of education. 

In order to see that the chief problems of education 
are primarily and essentially problems of interest, we 
have only to consider the fundamental nature of the 
more important problems that necessarily present them- 
selves in the work of education. Take, first, the problem 
of attention. 

2. Interest and Attention. — The problem that first 
presents itself, and is continually present in the school, 
is that of securing attention. To secure attention and to 
direct it to worthy objects are two of the most obvious, as 
well as two of the most important, of the difficulties 
that are encountered in the work of education. With- 
out attention words fall upon deaf ears, instruction is 
valueless, the powers of the mind are not brought into play. 
First of all, then, and throughout the entire work of the 
school, the teacher must engage the attention of the chil- 
dren. 

The power that children possess on entering the 
school is chiefly that of involuntary or spontaneous at- 
tention. They bestow their attention upon this, that, or 
the other, without regard to educational effects. Even 
this power is unsteady and vacillating. But they have 
that power, and if the teacher finds satisfaction in merely 
" keeping school," the problem of attention will solve it- 
self, for the children will attend to whatever may be 
attractive by nature. 



INTEREST AND THE PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION 69 

But the problem of the school necessarily involves the 
act of attending to many things that are not of them- 
selves engaging to children. That is to say, the art of 
education must be directed, so far as attention is con- 
cerned, to the development of voluntary attention. 

Now, the most direct method of drawing the attention 
to what is not of itself attractive is by request or command. 
How often do we hear in the schoolroom, *' Now please 
let me have your attention." If the request is not suffi- 
cient, it is followed by a command. This is good as far 
as it goes. In the school, as in the army, obedience to 
the command " Attention ! " means a certain attitude 
that is conducive to attention. It is well, for certain 
psychological reasons, to insist on that attitude, but a 
teacher soon learns that, to secure attention, and to in- 
sure its return to the object until a habit of attention is 
formed, something else is necessary. Let us see what 
this is. 

As already suggested, there are two generally recog- 
nized kinds of attention, — spontaneous, natural, or in- 
voluntary attention, and voluntary or artificial attention. 
Involuntary attention involves no effort. Voluntary 
attention requires an act of the will. It is accompanied 
by the feeling of effort. It is " a gift of nature," strong 
in some, weak in others. Now, if we examine the nature 
of those things to which attention is directed without an 
effort, we shall find that in every case they possess the 
element of interest. " Man, as an animal," says Ribot, 



70 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

" spontaneously bestows his attention only on that which 
touches himself, which interests him, which produces in 
him a state whether agreeable, disagreeable, or mixed." 
Naturally, then, children attend only to that which inter- 
ests them. 

The problem of the school, however, as said before, is 
to create voluntary attention, to secure attention to things 
upon which it would not be spontaneously bestowed. 
The more one thinks of this, the more important will it 
appear as a problem of the school. How is this to be 
done ? The answer is, by giving to such things the same 
quality that naturally engages attention ; that is to say, 
through bringing the child to a consciousness of the re- 
lation that they sustain to his own needs. " The pro- 
cess by which voluntary attention is produced," says 
Ribot, " is reducible to this one formula : Rendering 
attractive by artificial means that which is not so by 
nature ; giving an artificial interest to things that have 
not a natural interest." ^ We see, then, that the problem 
of attention is at bottom a problem of interest. If in- 
terest be aroused in that to which attention is sought to 
be directed, attention will take care of itself. Indeed, 
attention and interest are really two aspects of the same 
thing. 

Of course it is true that sometimes interest is initiated 
by attention. It must be true, of course, if we mean by 
attention mere sense perception. We must see a thing, 

1 Ribot, "The Psychology of Attention," Humboldt Edition, p. 13. 



INTEREST AND THE PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION 71 

touch it, taste it, smell it, hear it or about it, before there 
is any basis for interest. Our eye may happen, for instance, 
to fall upon an object, accidentally. We examine it and it 
may become interesting. All this is perfectly true, but 
the inference that some have drawn from it, namely, 
that attention and not interest is the fundamental thing, 
is incorrect. Voluntary attention, [it has often been 
shown and may easily be demonstrated, is practically an 
instantaneous affair. Even if it be obtained by com- 
mand or bestowed by conscious effort, it will remain only 
for a moment. Unless the matter to which attention is 
drawn is interesting, either for its own sake or because 
of its association as means with some desirable and 
therefore interesting end, it will wander away from it. 
The secret of holding attention, then, is to awaken in- 
terest. '' Do not, then, for the mere sake of discipline 
command attention from your pupils in thundering tones. 
Do not too often beg it as a favor or claim it as a right, 
or try habitually to excite it by preaching the importance 
of the subject. Sometimes, indeed, you must do these 
things ; but the more you have to do them, the less skill- 
ful a teacher you will show yourself to be." ^ So says 
Professor James, and he follows this injunction by the 
statement that to secure attention we must " elicit in- 
terest from within." Plainly, then, the problem of atten- 
tion is a problem of interest. 

So much for the problem of attention. Let us now 

1" Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals," New York, 1901, p. ill. 



72 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

consider the nature of retention and the problem of culti- 
vating the memory, and see what relation they sustain 
to the feeling of interest. 

3. Interest and Memory. — The retentiveness of the 
mind depends, to a considerable extent, no doubt, upon 
the character of the brain structure. It is in some 
degree a gift of nature. But with given natural re- 
tentive ability memory depends, first, upon depth of 
impression, and second, upon the force of association. 
Now, it is obvious that the depth and consequent 
permanence of an impression are determined by the 
attitude of the mind in relation to it. Retention depends 
upon attention. " The permanence of an impression," 
says Sully, " depends upon the degree of interest excited 
by the object, and the corresponding vigor of the act 
of attention. All strong feelings give a special per- 
sistence to impressions by arousing an exceptional 
degree of interest. Where a boy is deeply affected 
by pleasurable feeling, as in listening to an attractive 
story or in watching a cricket match, he remembers 
distinctly. Such intensity of feeling, by securing a 
strong interest and close attention, insures a vivid 
impression and a clear discrimination of the object, 
both in its several parts or details, and as a whole. 
And the fineness of the discriminative process is 
one of the most important determining conditions of 
retention." ^ 

1" Teachers' Handbook of Psychology," New York, 1887, p. 134-135. 



INTEREST AND THE PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION 73 

According to Professor William James, whom we 
have just quoted, "there can be no improvement of 
the general or elementary faculty of memory, there 
can only be improvement of our memory for special 
systems of associated things." This may not be, 
probably is not, strictly true. But generally speaking 
the only improvement of the memory possible to the 
school is the improvement that results from establish- 
ing in the mind a system of associated ideas, any one 
of which may call up others. These ideas must be 
" woven into association with each other in the mind." 
The more intricately and profoundly they are inter- 
woven, the more certainly will they be retained. Now, 
who is to do this interweaving ? Who is to build up 
these associations in the mind.? Who, indeed, can 
do so but the person whose memory is to be improved .? 
He may receive encouragement; others may stimulate 
him to make the effort, but it must be made by him 
if the associations are to be established in his mind. 
He must think over the facts that he wishes to remember 
and weave them into the most systematic relations 
with each other. But for making all this effort, for do- 
ing all this thinking, there must be some possible induce- 
ment, some motive. There must be some perception 
of their use or sense of their value. And what is this 
perception of use and sense of value but interest .? It 
is, of course, interest and nothing else. 

And so we come to this : We remember those things 



74 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

that are interesting, the things that we care for, or those 
that are associated with such things. We take the 
trouble to build up in our minds the system of associ- 
ated ideas necessary to the remembrance of a special 
class of facts only when interest incites us to do so. 
New facts to be remembered must be woven into the 
system by the active process of thought. This will 
not be done without interest. Memorizing, then, is 
thinking. Thinking is the secret of memory, but 
interest is the secret of thinking. 

That the cultivation of the memory depends upon 
interest is a fact that will be found to be illustrated 
in the case of such persons as possess a remarkable 
memory for any particular class of facts. We have 
some notable examples in history. It is said, — with 
how much truth it were idle to inquire, — that Cyrus, 
the founder of the Persian empire, knew the name of 
every soldier in his army ; that Mithridates, king of 
Pontus, knew all of his eighty thousand soldiers by 
their right names, and, that he might do so, became 
more or less proficient in the languages of the various 
countries whose troops served under his banners ; that 
Themistocles could call by name every citizen of Athens, 
twenty thousand in number ; that Scipio knew all the 
inhabitants of Rome. All these men, you observe, 
are reputed to have had a remarkable memory for 
names. It will be observed, also, that they were mili- 
tary leaders and politicians, men to whom the remem- 



INTEREST AND THE PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION 75 

brance of names was of peculiar value. It is easy 
to see how a memory of this kind is of value to a 
general, and every one is aware that the success of 
a politician is more or less dependent upon it. In all 
such cases the peculiarity and strength of the memory 
is indicative of an absorbing life interest. A memory 
for names is cultivated by men whose interest impels 
them to do so ; their success is dependent upon it. 

There are cases of remarkable memories of the same 
kind not so far removed in time but that we may know 
the secret of their development. Thurlow Weed, for 
instance, the celebrated New York journalist and politi- 
cian, a man who possessed a remarkable memory not 
only for names and faces, but also for political matters 
generally, confesses in his autobiography that at the 
beginning of his career his memory was poor. He 
concluded that its improvement was necessary to his 
success. So he set to work consciously and deliber- 
ately to improve his memory. He adopted the method 
of recalHng at night, as clearly as possible, all that had 
happened during the day. That he might apply his 
recollections to immediate use, and have an immediate 
purpose, he repeated to his wife the history of the day. 
This practice he kept up for more than fifty years. 
That interest in his own success was the motive which 
induced him to cultivate his memory would be obvious, 
even if it were not confessed. 

One more example of the same kind. A certain col- 



76 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

lege president is said to be able to recognize and call by 
name all the students who have attended the institution 
over which he presides. This is probably not true, but 
he remembers so many of them that he has acquired 
a reputation for remembering them all. This presi- 
dent says that when he took charge of the institution 
he had a remarkably poor memory for names. He 
realized, however, that this would be an obstacle to his 
success. Consequently he undertook consciously to 
strengthen his memory in this respect. He devised 
certain methods and followed them persistently. At 
length, after a long and persistent attention to the matter, 
he acquired a strong memory for names. Here the re- 
lation of interest and memory is quite as obvious as in the 
preceding case. This president was interested in the 
success of his institution. He saw the importance of 
a memory for names as a means to this success. Con- 
sequently he set about its development. His peculiar 
memory is a result of a peculiar interest. 

Mozart is said to have had a wonderful memory for 
musical sounds. It is reported that "when only four- 
teen years of age, he went to Rome to assist in the 
solemnities of Holy Week. Immediately after his ar- 
rival, he went to the Sistine Chapel to hear the famous 
* Miserere ' of Allegri. Being aware that it was for- 
bidden to give or take a copy of this renowned piece of 
music, Mozart placed himself in a corner, and gave the 
strictest attention to the music, and, on leaving the 



INTEREST AND THE PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION 77 

church, noted down the entire piece. A few days after- 
wards he heard it a second time, and following the 
music with his own copy in his hand, satisfied himself 
as to the fidelity of his memory. The next day he sang 
the * Miserere ' at a concert, accompanying himself on 
the harpsichord ; and the performance produced such a 
sensation in Rome that Pope Clement XIV requested 
that the musical prodigy should be presented to him at 
once." So runs the story. In this case it is probably 
true that there was a strong elementary faculty of mem- 
ory. But it was certainly accompanied and fortified by 
a powerful musical interest. 

These, and other illustrations which might be given, 
support the conclusion reached in considering the na- 
ture of an acquired memory, that retention as well as 
attention is the result of interest, and that the problem 
of cultivating the memory is essentially a problem of 
interest. A conclusion exactly similar will be reached 
if we take any other educational problem and consider 
it in the same way. As the matter is of fundamental 
importance, we shall consider a few other problems. 
Let us pass to the problem of training children to 
think. 

4. Interest and Thought. — The only possible method 
of training children to think is to lead them to exercise 
their minds in the process of thinking. Such exercise, 
which requires comparison and judgment, an active 
state of the mind, the expenditure of mental energy, 



78 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

will not be undertaken without a motive. And what 
motive can there be but the consciousness that either 
the process of thinking or the conclusions reached bear 
a significant relation to the satisfaction or well-being 
of the self ? This consciousness, however, is interest. 
So we arrive again at the same conclusion with regard 
to the relation which interest sustains to the cultivation 
of the power to think that was reached with respect to 
the problems previously mentioned. The problem of 
interest underlies the problem of cultivating the intel- 
lectual power. Let us now see its relation to the prob- 
lem of moral training, that is, the cultivation of the will. 

5. Interest and the Will. — What we call the will 
implies the act of choosing between different modes of 
action, and upon this power of choice character pri- 
marily depends. The education of the will, then, since 
it has in one of its aspects a moral significance, is one of 
the most important functions of the school. How is it 
to be accomplished ? 

Without entering upon a technical discussion with 
respect to the nature of the will, let us take a typical 
example of willing, and see, if we can, what is involved 
in the process. Suppose, for instance, there is a ques- 
tion as to how you will spend the day. Obviously there 
must be open to you more than one possible way of 
spending it, otherwise there would be no opportunity 
for choice. You may spend the time in study, you may 
visit a friend, you may work in the garden, you may go 



INTEREST AND THE PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION 79 

to the woods. There are various thmgs you may do. 
All these things, and more, present themselves to your 
consciousness in rapid succession, and it is your business 
to choose the one you prefer from among them. The 
choice, however, involves selection, and selection will 
not be made until the one or the other appears to you 
to be preferable. There must, therefore, be inhibition 
of the tendency to act in accordance with any idea that 
presents itself, until the comparison is made and a 
judgment is formed. When you have weighed the 
probable results of spending the day in this way or that, 
you at last reach a decision. You decide that one way 
is preferable to all the others. Your mind is made up, 
and you act accordingly. 

Now the most careful examination of this process of 
willing will reveal absolutely nothing but states of con- 
sciousness — attention and the deliberate reflection and 
judgment involved in thought. That is to say, the prob- 
lem of the cultivation of the will presents no new mys- 
terious or extraneous factor. It is all summed up in the 
one word Thinking. Professor James says, " If, then, 
you are asked, * In what does a moral act consist when 
reduced to its simplest and most elementary form ? ' 
you can make only one reply. You can say that it con- 
sists in the effort of attention by which we hold fast to 
an idea which but for that effort of attention would be 
driven out of the mind by the other psychological tend- 
encies that are there. To think, in short, is the secret 



80 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

of will, just as it is the secret of memory." But we 
have already seen that back of thought lies interest, so 
we must conclude that the problem of cultivating the 
will, like those previously considered, is fundamentally 
and essentially a problem of interest. 

6. Interest and Discipline. — As a final illustration of 
the fundamental importance of interest, we shall consider 
the relation that it sustains to the problem of discipline. 
Discipline presents a problem, which, especially to the 
young teacher, is perhaps the most important of all. 
Unless the teacher can " discipline " the school, he will 
soon be in the condition of Othello, — his occupation will 
be gone. By some of the earlier school authorities it 
was supposed that a good disciplinarian must necessa- 
rily be a man or woman of great physical power. Even 
now, the successful control of a school by " a slip of a 
girl," especially if the school contains a few husky and mis- 
chievous boys, is spoken of in some localities as a thing 
to cause wonder. But we have long since learned 
that this problem, as well as the other problems of educa- 
tion, yields much more readily to intelligence than it 
does to brute force. Even with this view of the matter, 
however, discipline is to many teachers the most trouble- 
some problem they have to encounter. 

Now, what is the best method of discipline ? It is 
the indirect method. The teacher may lecture, enjoin, 
entreat, command, and all he does may be of no avail. 
Unless the interest of the children be aroused in the work 



INTEREST AND THE PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION 8 1 

of the school, there can be only the compulsion and dis- 
cipline of a penal institution. But if the teacher can 
succeed in arousing the interest of the children in the 
subjects of instruction, and in the harmony of action 
necessary to a well conducted school, discipline will 
practically take care of itself. 

In almost every school, at least in a great many, there 
is " a bad boy " ; and so we have a bad boy problem, 
which is, of course, only a special problem in discipline. 
Now, who is the bad boy ? Generally speaking, he is 
the boy who is not sufficiently interested in either his 
lessons or in the welfare of the school to care for the 
one or the other. Often he is *' a good boy whose en- 
ergies are misdirected." He is not in any case without 
interest, however, only his interest does not attach itself 
to the objects and ends desired by the teacher. If the 
teacher can succeed in arousing his interest in the school 
activities, he often becomes the best pupil. The bad boy 
is simply the boy whose interests conflict with the re- 
quirements of the school. We have a term used to 
designate the bad man of society. It is the word "anti- 
social." The bad man is simply the man whose psycho- 
logical interests do not harmonize with the interests of 
society. The problem of the bad boy, as well as that 
of the bad man, is merely a problem of harmonizing 
interests. 

To show how the problem of discipline may be solved 
by attention to interest, a case may be cited which has 



82 TEIE ART OF EDUCATION 

come under the writer's notice. A certain boy had been 
dismissed from school two years in succession. He was 
not a particularly bad boy ; he was a nonconformist with 
respect to school regulations. A new teacher was em- 
ployed. The boy came to school, selected a seat in the 
center of the room, and by inattention, inapplication, and 
general disregard of the rules began to make trouble 
for the teacher. The other pupils awaited the outcome 
expectantly. Well-meaning patrons of the school ad- 
vised the teacher to expel the boy at once. The teacher 
accepted the situation, however, as a challenge to his 
tact and skill. He studied the boy's interests, and found 
that he had some pride in his ability to make things with 
a knife. The teacher then asked him if he thought that 
he could make some simple apparatus for the class in 
physics. He thought that he could. But while he was 
at work upon his task, he created a great deal of confu- 
sion in the school by talking, moving about, and in 
various ways interfering with the work of others. How 
easy it would have been to evoke trouble just at this 
point by an attempt on the part of the teacher to im- 
pose his will on the boy ! Instead of doing so, he com- 
plimented him on his success, and incidentally asked 
him if he could do his best work in the midst of the 
other pupils. He thought that he could not, for, as he 
said, "they disturbed him." The teacher then asked 
him if he would not like a room to himself. He thought 
that would be a fine thing. In a few days he was at 



INTEREST AND THE PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION S^ 

work in an anteroom, shut off from the other pupils 
and incapable of disturbing them, and quite proud of 
the fact that he had been accorded a particular distinc- 
tion. 

To make the apparatus required, the boy was obhged 
to study the book and the lessons assigned. When the 
class came to the subject of electricity, he manifested a 
deep interest. He made a Holtz electrical machine 
that served all the purposes of the class. He came 
to see the relation between physics and mathematics, 
and by the end of the year he led his class in both 
subjects. 

This boy completed the work of the high school with- 
out giving the teacher any serious trouble in the matter 
of discipline. And long before the work was completed 
he was looking about for a college or university that 
offered special opportunities in the line of physics, to 
which he might go for further instruction. He was 
advised to enter one of our largest universities. He did 
so, and secured employment to defray his expenses. 
While he was pursuing his course, a professor of that 
university was asked whether he knew the boy. " Know 
him ! " said he, " everybody knows him, he is a genius ! " 
This " special case " is now a professor in his Alma 
Mater, a man of usefulness and power. 

Now, the bad boy is not always a genius, but the suc- 
cessful solution of the problem of discipline in this par- 
ticular case is an indication that, with skill and sufficient 



84 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

diplomacy, the native and acquired interests of even the 
so-called incorrigible pupil may be expanded, intensified, 
and turned to social account. At any rate, the problem 
of discipline is practically solved when a solution is 
found for the problem of interest. 

By continuing the process of inductive reasoning fol- 
lowed in this chapter it could be shown, I think, that 
what is true of the educational problems of attention, mem- 
ory, thought, the will, and discipline, is true of them all. 
They are all, at bottom, problems of interest. "The 
fact," says Ostermann, ''that the whole range of the 
associative process, as well as attention and reten- 
tiveness of the memory, and indeed, all spontaneous 
and happy devotion to school work, is dependent upon 
interest, makes it evident that interest is of special 
significance for the intellectual results of school in- 
struction. At the same time, the fact that all the 
motives of conscious effort and volition depend on in- 
terest causes interest to assume, from an educational 
standpoint, the significance of a cardinal concept of 
pedagogy, of a fundamental principle on whose proper 
recognition depends more than upon anything else the 
educational success of home training." ^ 

This, I believe, is true. At all events, I shall proceed 
upon the theory that the problem of interest underHes 
all other educational problems; that education consists, 

^ Ostermann, " Interest in its Relation to Pedagogy," p. 82, quoted by 
McMurry, "Elements of General Method," New York, 1903, pp. 154-155. 



INTEREST AND THE PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION 85 

or should consist, not in the imposition of more or less 
monotonous or meaningless tasks, but in the skillful 
guidance of activities arising from interest. We may 
naturally turn, therefore, to a consideration of the Doc- 
trine of Interest. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en. 
In brief, sir, study what you most afifect. 

— Shakespeare. 

In choosing the succession of subjects and the modes of instruction 
which most interest the pupil, we are fulfilling nature's behests, and ad- 
justing our proceedings to the laws of life. — Spencer. 

I. The Doctrine Stated. — The doctrine of interest, 
briefly stated, is that the work of the school should be 
interesting. That it may be so, the selected subject mat- 
ter of instruction must be related to the child's experi- 
ence, powers, and needs, and must be so presented as to 
awaken in him a sense of its personal significance. 
Herbart expressed the doctrine in this form : " The 
interest naturally attaching to the ends for which pupils 
study should be awakened in the means, that is the 
studies, used for reaching them." This doctrine assumes 
the correctness of what was stated in the preceding 
chapter with respect to the underlying relationship of 
interest to attention, memory, thought, will, and action, 
and declares that school studies and school tasks, if care- 
fully adapted to the needs of the child, will be attractive 
to him, will be undertaken with pleasure, and that pleas- 
urable activity is most beneficial in its results, with respect 



THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 87 

both to discipline and to the acquisition of knowledge. 
The art of education, then, according to the doctrine of 
interest, consists in utilizing the native impulses or nat- 
ural aptitudes of the child to develop in him the powers, 
habits, and knowledge essential to individual and social 
well-being ; that is to say, the control of interest. " This 
utilizing of interest and habit," says Dewey, "to make 
of it something fuller, wider, something more refined and 
under better control, might be defined as the teacher's 
whole duty." ^ 

2. Interest and Play. — The doctrine of interest is 
sometimes incorrectly represented as meaning that all 
the work of the school should be made easy, that it 
should become the same thing as play, that children 
should not be required to devote attention to anything 
that involves conscious effort. This, however, is a mis- 
taken conception of the doctrine. It does not imply 
that the spontaneous interests should be humored, but 
that they be controlled and directed. Children should 
not be allowed to do as they please, but they should be 
led, if possible, to do with pleasure whatever it is nec- 
essary for them to do. That is, their interest should be 
aroused in the case of all necessary tasks. 

If the teacher sets the tasks with due regard for the 
necessities of the child's development, some of these 
tasks will of course be difficult. But children, as a rule, 

1 " Interest as Related to Will" (second supplement to the Herbart Year- 
book for 1895), P- 3^- 



88 THE ART OE EDUCATION 

are not deterred by difficulties. They like to undertake 
what is difficult, provided, of course, it is not too diffi- 
cult, and provided also that it is something which it 
seems worth while to perform, something which, as they 
say, has '' some sense " in it. No one needs to be told 
that there is a pleasure in the achievement of difficult 
things, in the mere exertion of power. Sometimes the 
mere difficulty excites interest. 

A difficult task, then, is not necessarily uninteresting. 
It must be acknowledged, of course, that much of the 
work of the school demands voluntary attention. Left 
to the free play of his native interests, the child would 
not undertake it. But it must be done. Now, let us 
suppose a difficult and uninteresting, but necessary, 
task. How is the child to be led to perform it } What 
would be the procedure in accordance with the doctrine 
of interest .-' 

Well, in the first place, the interest of the child may 
possibly be drawn to the task by additional knowledge 
concerning it. The teacher provides that, and thus, by 
flashing the light of his own inteUigence upon it, reveals 
its different aspects, and endeavors to make it attractive 
of itself, so that direct interest in it may be awakened. 
If unsuccessful in this, he tries to show the relation 
of the task and its successful performance to something 
the child does desire, and thus brings it within the 
glow of an existing interest from which it may borrow 
light and heat, and thus awaken an indirect interest. 



THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 89 

The teacher knows that if sufficient interest be aroused, 
direct or indirect, the task will be performed, for interest 
impels to action. 

Now, let us observe the probable procedure of a teacher 
who would disregard the doctrine of interest. In all 
probabiHty such a teacher would begin by an attempt to 
appeal to the child's interest. But if no interest is 
manifested, that is, if he fails with this method, such a 
teacher then resorts to a form of compulsion. If he 
says, "You must do this, or be kept in after school," he 
relies on a negative interest in the threatened punishment 
to induce a sufficient indirect interest to carry the child 
over the difficulty. Or if he moralizes, and lectures the 
child on the disciplinary value of overcoming difficulties, 
he is but trying to arouse the interest of the child in a 
desirable quality to the creation of which the difficult 
task is expected to contribute, and is thus applying the 
doctrine of interest as it is involved in the awakening 
of indirect interest. The fact is, the doctrine of interest 
cannot be really evaded. It crops up in every method 
of influencing the mind. It may be unskillfully applied, 
but you can no more disregard it than you can disregard 
nature. 

This being the case, it is better to acknowledge frankly 
the part that interest plays in all voluntary action and 
proceed to the acquirement of skill in calling it forth. 
We need have no fear that all the work of the school 
will become play. Some of it will be dry and uninter- 



go THE ART OF EDUCATION 

esting enough after we have done our best to throw 
about it an attractive halo that will incite attention and 
awaken interest. But the more of it that can be brought 
within the range of interest, so that the child will under- 
take it with a zest and an enthusiasm akin to what is 
manifested in play, the more rapidly he will develop. 
Joy in work is the aim in life, and it should be the aim 
of the school. 

Play is only nature's method of bringing about devel- 
opment. As I write, a kitten is playing on the floor. 
It runs, jumps, grasps, rolls over, and otherwise exerts 
itself so as to bring into play practically all of its muscles. 
What it is doing requires difficult coordinations and adap- 
tations of its various organs. But the kitten is wholly 
unconscious, of course, of the ends which its play sub- 
serves. So far as it ic concerned, the play ends in feel- 
ing. But nature has carefully brought it about through 
a long process of evolution that its feeling coincides 
with function. Without intending it, the kitten is devel- 
oping its powers quite as effectively as if its play were 
undertaken solely for that end. Play is a device of 
nature ; work is a device of man. 

Inasmuch, however, as the play impulse is so strong 
in the child, and in the race, it is obvious that a skillful 
application of the doctrine of interest must involve con- 
stant appeal to it through purposeful organization of 
play activities. The game is a powerful instrument in 
the hands of a skillful teacher. Furthermore, since with 



THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 9 1 

the little child play is almost the whole of life, "the 
greatest thing in the world," it ought to be obvious that 
the activities required in elementary education should 
take the form of play. We need have no fear that, in 
skillful hands, too much of the work of the school will 
be made play. We should be more concerned with the 
fact that the possibilities of a wise direction of the play 
impulse seem as yet to be but faintly perceived. 

3. Interest and Effort. — A second objection to the 
doctrine of interest, or rather another form of the first 
objection, is that it disregards effort, or the cultivation 
of the will. This objection implies that the will is a 
separate faculty of the mind and may be cultivated inde- 
pendently of thought and attention. This, to say the 
least, is questionable psychology. It implies, further- 
more, that the best way to cultivate the will is to exercise 
it upon what is wholly uninteresting and disagreeable. 
As a matter of fact, this cannot be done. There must 
be some motive for action. If any one is led to under- 
take a difficult thing merely for the purpose of cultivat- 
ing his will, obviously it is the reflected interest of the 
desired end, namely, will power, that impels him to 
action. It is somewhat surprising to find even Professor 
James using language that implies the possibility of 
cultivating the will, so to speak, in vacuo. He says, 
" Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratu- 
itous exercise every day." But there is no such thing 
as gratuitous exercise. Certainly exercise to keep alive 



92 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

the faculty of effort could not be classed under that 
head. In the same connection, he urges us to do some- 
thing every day or two " for no other reason than that 
you would rather not do it," and then proceeds to give 
us another reason, namely, *' that when the hour of dire 
need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and 
untrained to stand the test." ^ The advice is good, but 
the psychology implied is certainly at fault. What 
Professor James really means is this, that the power of 
concentrating attention, of energetic volition, and of self- 
denial is of so much importance in life that every one 
should become so much interested in acquiring it that he 
will give frequent conscious attention to its development 
by practicing this virtue upon othervvise unnecessary 
things. 

Teachers sometimes say that in order to develop the 
will, children must be made to do what they do not want 
to do. Of course, that, in any strict sense of the word, 
cannot be done except by physical compulsion. What- 
ever the will may be, it never acts without a motive, and 
it never operates without regard to the effect of the 
action upon the willing agent. A child that is driven 
to a task takes it up through fear of punishment. He 
prefers the disagreeable feeling arising from the applica- 
tion to the work required, to the still more disagreeable 
feeling that will arise from the punishment to be inflicted. 
Of two evils he chooses the lesser. Those who resort 

ijames, "Psychology, Briefer Course," New York, 1892, p. 149. 



THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 93 

to this method of stimulating the activity of the child 
deceive themselves when they say that they have *' made 
the child do what he did not want to do." They have 
merely stacked the resultant effects so that the child 
prefers to perform the task required rather than to take 
the consequences. They have done little or nothing to 
cultivate the will. What they have really effected is 
this : they have developed in his mind a negative interest 
in a situation which the child can avoid only by apply- 
ing himself to the work required. This negative interest, 
if sufficiently intense, gives to the means necessary to 
avoid the punishment, that is, the work required, an 
interest merely sufficient to move the will. But such 
interest, being associated with a disagreeable or painful 
situation, is not likely to become a permanent interest, 
and thus one of the chief ends of education is defeated. 
The same self-deception and faulty psychology are 
involved in the prevaiUng popular conception of the 
necessity of "breaking the will." The idea that to 
mend a child's will it must be broken seems natural 
enough if the words alone be considered. But that such 
a method of moral training has been countenanced in 
the home and in the school shows with what little reflec- 
tion a responsible task is sometimes undertaken. It 
would be quite as absurd to advocate the breaking of a 
child's bones as the first step to the development of his 
body as to insist on breaking the will as the necessary 
preliminary to the development of his character. Instead 



94 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

of trying to break the will we should curb and di- 
rect it. 

There is another undesirable consequence of this 
method of training the will. It is that of divided at- 
tention. Dr. Dewey brings this out in his essay on 
"Interest as Related to Will." "The great fallacy of 
the so-called effort theory," he says, " is, that it identifies 
the exercise and training of will with certain external 
activities and certain external results. It is supposed, 
because a child is occupied with some outward result, 
and because he succeeds in exhibiting the required prod- 
uct, that he is really putting forth will, and that definite 
intellectual and moral habits are in process of forma- 
tion. But as a matter of fact, the moral exercise of the 
will is not found in the external assumption of any pos- 
ture, and the formation of moral habit cannot be identi- 
fied with the abiHty to show up results at the demand 
of another. The exercise of the will is manifest in the 
direction of attention, and depends upon the spirit, the 
motive, the disposition, in which the work is carried on. 

"The child may be externally entirely occupied with 
mastering the multiplication table, and may be able to 
reproduce that table when asked to do so by his teacher. 
The teacher may congratulate himself that the child has 
been exercising his will power so as to be forming right 
intellectual and moral habits. Not so, unless moral 
habit be identified with this ability to show certain re- 
sults when required. The question of moral training has 



THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 95 

not been touched until we know what the child has been 
internally occupied with, what the preponderating di- 
rection of his attention, his feelings, his disposition, has 
been while engaged upon this task. If the task has 
appealed to him merely as a task, it is as certain, psy- 
chologically, as the law of action and reaction physically, 
that the child is simply engaged in acquiring the habit 
of divided attention ; that he is getting the ability to 
direct eye and ear, lips and mouth, to what is present 
before him in such a way as to impress those things upon 
his memory, while at the same time getting his mental 
imagery free to work upon matters of real interest to him. 

" No account of the actual moral training secured is 
adequate unless it recognizes the division of attention 
into which the child is being educated, and faces the 
question of what the moral worth of such a division 
may be. External mechanical attention to a task con- 
ceived as a task is the inevitable correlate of an internal 
mind-wandering along the lines of the pleasurable. 

"The spontaneous power of the child, his demand for 
realization of his own impulses, cannot by any possibility 
be suppressed. If the external conditions are such that 
the child cannot put his spontaneous activity into the 
work to be done, if he finds that he cannot express him- 
self in that, he learns in a most miraculous way the 
exact amount of attention that has to be given to this 
external material to satisfy the requirements of the 
teacher, while saving up the rest of his mental powers 



96 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

for following out lines of imagery that appeal to him. 
I do not say that there is absolutely no moral training 
involved in forming these habits of external attention, 
but I do say that there is a question of moral import 
involved in the formation of the habits of internal in- 
attention." * 

What a child is made to do, then, is of less conse- 
quence in training the will, and in developing the power 
of attention, than what he is led to undertake with the 
zest due to a lively interest. The training of the will is 
nothing more than the training of the intellectual pow- 
ers by means of which we evaluate the different ends of 
action. To think rightly, and to cultivate the habit of 
responding to our own judgment of what is best, is the 
only method of training the will. 

We must dismiss the idea, then, that there is any 
special disciplinary value in disagreeable tasks or in 
drudgery. '' Observation shows, as a fact," says Clap- 
arede, " that the value and fertility of work are in direct 
proportion to its intrinsic interest. By substituting for 
this intrinsic interest an extrinsic interest (like that of 
avoiding punishment) one cuts off the spontaneous as- 
sistance of the mind ; for, not having created in mind 
any desire for knowledge that the accomplishment of 
work might satisfy, one has not set in motion any of 
the mental processes specially adapted for securing its 

^ Quoted also by McMurry, *' Elements of General Method," New York, 
1903, pp. 155-157. 



THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 97 

accomplishment. This inferior form of work is what 
is called drudgery. Drudgery, since it does not respond 
to any need in our nature, repels us, as a meal repels us 
when we are not hungry ; also it sets in motion a crowd 
of defensive reflexes (disgust, inattention, etc.), which, 
to begin with, have to be kept in check, and this entails 
expenditure of energy without any effective work to 
show for it. Drudgery is therefore particularly ex- 
hausting and discouraging, since for a minimum of 
work it exacts a maximum of energy."^ 

Why, then, should we not strive to make the school 
a most interesting place to the children ? Let us frankly 
admit that if the school is not attractive to the child 
something is wrong with the school. Shakespeare's 
simile in the lines — 

" Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books ; 
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks " 

should be made inapplicable by the recognition and dis- 
covery on the part of the teacher of the natural se- 
quence in which the faculties spontaneously develop, 
and by the careful provision of the kind of knowledge 
that each requires ; that is, by a skillful application of 
the doctrine of interest. The gospel of education is the 
gospel of art, joy in labor. It has been well described 
by Kenyon Cox in the lines that follow : — 

" Work thou for pleasure ; paint or sing or carve 
The thing thou lovest, though the body starve. 

1 Claparede, "Experimental Pedagogy," New York, 1912, p. 156. 
H 



gS THE ART OF EDUCATION 

" Who works for glory misses oft the goal ; 
Who works for money coins his very soul. 

" Work for the work's sake, then, and it may be 
That these things shall be added unto thee." 

4. Interest and Duty. — A third objection to the doc- 
trine of interest is that it makes pleasure, satisfaction, 
ease, comfort, well-being, or some desirable personal con- 
dition the end of action rather than Duty. (Exactly the 
same criticism might be offered against Nature.) Duty, 
it is said, is ''the stern daughter of the voice of God," and 
her behests must be obeyed. So they must. But duty 
is not an end in itself. Why should any one perform his 
duty unless it be because he will be better off for having 
performed it ? The performance of duty leads to an im- 
proved state of being. How is this improvement to be 
measured except in terms of some kind of satisfaction .'' 
The doctrine of duty, then, merely means that we should 
attach such an interest to the end for which duty is per- 
formed that we obey the behests of duty for the sake of 
the end. This doctrine presents merely a case of second- 
ary or mediate interest. A disagreeable duty is merely 
a task which possesses no immediate interest of itself, 
but which bears such an intimate relationship to the 
attainment of character that it borrows from it a sort 
of reflected interest ; just as does the study of arithme- 
tic to the boy who has no fondness for it, when it be- 
comes necessary to enable him to pass an examination. 
Duty is merely a means to right living. Awaken suf- 



THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 99 

ficient interest in the end, and duty becomes interesting 
and will be performed. There is absolutely no conflict 
between the doctrine of interest and the doctrine of 
duty when the former is properly understood. 

5. All Necessary Work may be made Interesting. — 
While the work of the school may not become play, in- 
terest may be attached to it if there is sufficient knowl- 
edge and skill on the part of the teacher to give it a 
personal meaning and consequence, that is, to connect 
it closely with the life of the child. There is absolutely 
no necessary task, no form of drudgery in school or in 
life, that may not, under conceivable circumstances, be- 
come interesting, or that may not be made interesting 
by ideal knowledge and skill. 

I am aware that Professor James may be quoted as 
saying that "in all schoolroom work there is a large 
mass of material that must be dull and unexciting, and 
to which it is impossible, in any continuous way, to 
contribute an interest associatively derived " ; that " it is 
certain that most schoolroom work, until it has become 
habitual and automatic, is repulsive, and cannot be done 
without voluntarily jerking back the attention to it every 
now and then " ; that " this is inevitable, let the teacher 
do what he will"; and, finally, that "it is nonsense to 
suppose that every step in education can be interesting." 
With such positive statements of so great an authority 
confronting me, I should hesitate to assert the contrary 
were Professor James consistent. But he is not. He 



lOO THE ART OF EDUCATION 

says, also, "The most natively interesting object of a 
man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We ac- 
cordingly see that the moment a thing becomes con- 
nected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes 
an interesting thing." To say, then, that there are steps 
in education that cannot be made interesting is equiva- 
lent to saying that such steps in education are in no pos- 
sible way connected with the fortunes of the self ! That 
would be strange doctrine. If there be such steps, is 
it not obvious that they should be at once removed ? ^ 

To see how even drudgery may rise to the plane 
of interest, consider the work that a mother performs 
for the sake of her child. To the onlooker it seems 
uninteresting and disagreeable, the worst form of drudg- 
ery. To the mother herself, however, it presents an 
entirely different aspect. Her interest is in the child. 
The child is, in a very true sense, a part of herself. 
She cannot be indifferent to its wants and its welfare. 
Whatever is necessary to the well-being and happiness 
of the child is therefore essential to her own well-being 
and happiness. The work that she performs, then, 
being necessary for the child's comfort, becomes in- 
teresting to her because it means so much to her own 
life. It acquires a secondary interest. If a teacher 
were as deeply interested in the children of the school 

1 In this connection it may be pointed out that Professor James's criti- 
cism of what he calls " soft pedagogics " is not directed against the doctrine 
of interest, but against its unintelligent application. See op, cit., pp. 54, 
95, 109, III. 



THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST lOI 

as a mother is in those of her own household, the 
teacher's work, even to the grading of papers and 
other routine duties, would become interesting. The 
end would dignify and glorify the means. 

In society the work that we call menial seems disagree- 
able enough. It is a form of drudgery. The workman 
applies himself to it with little or no immediate interest. 
He goes to his work with no more eagerness than 
Shakespeare's boy " creeping like snail unwillingly to 
school." But if the workman were animated, not merely 
by an interest in the wages he is to receive, but also by a 
clear recognition of the relation of his work to human 
needs, and by a deep desire to serve humanity, the work 
itself would take on an interest borrowed from interest 
in the end which the work subserves. 

" No kind of useful labor," says John Stuart Mill, "is 
necessarily or universally repugnant, unless either ex- 
cessive in amount or devoid of the stimulus of com- 
panionship and emulation, or regarded by mankind 
with contempt." In Shakespeare's " Tempest," Ferdi- 
nand who is carrying logs in obedience to Prospero, 
is made to say : — 

'' This my mean task 
Would be as heavy to me as odious, but 
The mistress which I serve quickens w^hat^s dead 
And makes my labours pleasures." 

When Miranda implores him not to work so hard and 
to let her assist him, he says : — 



I02 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

" No, noble mistress ; His fresh morning with me 
When you are by at night . . . 
and for your sake 
Am I this patient log-man." 

Is there anything in school or in life that love cannot 
make interesting ? 

If, then, we fail to make the school, or any part of 
its work, attractive to the children, we may not excuse 
ourselves on the ground that most schoolroom work 
is necessarily repulsive. We shall frankly admit that 
we are lacking in skill. Without such admission there 
is not Hkely to be serious effort at improvement. 

6. Conclusion. — We have now seen that the Doctrine 
of Interest applies to all the activities of the school, 
that it is not inconsistent with the doctrine of duty, that 
it should not be disregarded in the effort to develop moral 
character, that it is far from meaning that children should 
be permitted to do as they please or to follow every whim, 
and that it is anything but "soft pedagogics." Activity 
in accordance with interest is a law of mind, a law as 
much to be relied upon as any other law of nature. To 
violate it in the effort to educate means always a waste 
of time, even if it results in no more serious evil conse- 
quences. The wise teacher will therefore study to under- 
stand the Doctrine of Interest, not be misled by criticisms 
based upon misconceptions of the doctrine, and will 
seek diligently the knowledge that will enable him to 
apply it successfully. 



CHAPTER VII 

METHODS OF AROUSING INTEREST 

The art of teaching is nothing but the art of awakening curiosity in 
young souls in order to satisfy it afterwards. — Anatole France. 

Teachers are fond of talking about creating an interest, but this labor at 
least is spared them. They have not to create, but only to direct interest. 
— Adams. 

I. The Problem of the Teacher. — If the doctrine of 
interest is sound, the chief problem of the teacher is the 
problem of awakening interest in objects which are not 
of themselves natively attractive ; that is, the problem 
of arousing indirect interest. Properly directed self-ac- 
tivity is, of course, the end the teacher must aim to reach, 
but this is to be attained only indirectly. If the teacher is 
able to arouse the appropriate interest, self-activity will 
take care of itself. To arouse such interest it is neces- 
sary to know that interest is the impelling power, and to 
have some acquaintance with the methods by which it is 
controlled; just as it is necessary for an engineer to 
know the kind of force that runs his engine and the 
peculiar method of its control. 

Suppose that a man who has no knowledge of machin- 
ery should be placed in charge of an industrial plant con- 
taining various kinds of machines. He would know 
that somehow the machinery must be set in motion. We 

103 



I04 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

can imagine him pulling away at a belt or pistonrod, 
or applying his strength in a vain effort to turn the 
wheels. He would wear himself out, and nothing would 
be accomplished. How different would be the proce- 
dure of a skillful mechanic ! He would ascertain the kind 
of force to be applied, — water power, steam, or elec- 
tricity, — and then, after examining the various machines 
to see that they were properly adjusted, he would open a 
valve, pull a throttle, or press a button, and a force other 
than his own would set the entire machinery in har- 
monious motion. 

Now, the school is more complex than an industrial 
plant. Children are far less easily controlled than 
machinery. They do not await the effort of the teacher 
to set them in motion. But harmonious activity is not 
easily secured. The unskillful teacher, like the ignorant 
mechanic, proceeds with little regard to the motive 
power. He demands, scolds, threatens, storms, pun- 
ishes ; proceeds, as the saying is, " by main strength and 
awkwardness." The result is exhaustion and confusion. 
The skillful teacher, however, like the skillful mechanic, 
proceeds quietly and with confidence. He knows the 
motive power, and how to touch the spring of action. 
He awakens appropriate interest, and the activities of 
the school are carried on without unnecessary friction, 
and toward desired ends. 

But how is the teacher to succeed in arousing interest.? 
That is the problem to which we must now turn our at- 
tention. 



METHODS OF AROUSING INTEREST 105 

2. Life as Interest and a Succession of Interests. — 
Fortunately for the teacher, arousing interest does not 
mean the creation of interest de novo. As has been said 
before, the problem is not the creation of interest, but its 
control and direction. And this leads us to the preUmi- 
nary consideration of two important facts which have a 
peculiar significance for education. 

The first of these facts has already been referred to. 
It is this : The child, even the youngest, is provided 
with a variety of instincts that manifest themselves in an 
equal variety of interests. Fear, anger, affection, imita- 
tion, rivalry, sympathy, sociabiHty, vanity, envy, jealousy, 
are among the instincts with which the child is equipped. 
The Jhings that satisfy these instincts are natively in- 
teresting. Here, then, we have the points of initiative, 
something to appeal to, the " working machinery " of 
the child's life. Life is interest. 

And the second fact may be expressed as follows : Life 
consists in a successive change of interests. This is a 
fact that perhaps needs little or no illustration. It has 
been observed and set forth not merely by the psychol- 
ogists, but by poets as well. Pope, for instance, in his 
" Essay on Man " presents a picture of Hfe which well 
illustrates this successive change. He says : — 

" Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, 
Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw : 
Some livelier play-thing gives his youth delight, 
A little louder, but as empty quite : 
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, 



I06 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

And beads and prayV-books are the toys of age : 
Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before ; 
'Till tir'd he sleeps, and Life's poor play is o'er." 

This is a somewhat pessimistic view of life, but it is 
correct so far as the successive change of interests is 
concerned. One has only to reflect upon the changes 
that have taken place in one's own life to realize that 
this is true. We smile when we think of the objects of 
our interest in earlier periods of our lives. Sports and 
games that used to be absorbingly interesting have 
lost their attractiveness. Early ambitions have passed 
away. The man who in youth aspired to become a cir- 
cus performer, a prize fighter, an Indian slayer, or a 
detective, finds himself entirely bereft of these youthful 
ambitions. He is interested in other things. Words- 
worth in the " Ode on Immortality " gives such a true 
picture of life with respect to changing interests that 
it is worth reproducing for its own sake although it may 
not be needed to enforce what has just been said. He 
says : — 

" Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, 
A six years' Darling of a pigmy size ! 
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, 
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, 
With light upon him from his father's eyes ! 
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, 
Some fragment from his dream of human life, 
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art ! 

A wedding or a festival, 

A mourning or a funeral. 

And this hath now his heart. 



METHODS OF AROUSING INTEREST 107 

And unto this he frames his song : 

Then will he fit his tongue 
To dialogues of business, love, or strife ; 

But it will not be long 

Ere this be thrown aside. 

And with new joy and pride 
The little Actor cons another part ; 
Fining from time to time his 'humorous stage' 
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 
That Life brings with her in her equipage, 

As if his whole vocation 

Were endless imitation." 

Life, then, is a successive change of interest. It is 
the function of the school to make this change progres- 
sive. 

3. Begin with Native Interests. — In order to direct 
the current of interest and insure progressive rather than 
regressive change we must begin with native interests ; 
that is, we must devote attention primarily to objects 
that are in themselves attractive or repellent to the child. 
This necessarily involves a study of children's interests. 
The teacher must know when certain interests manifest 
themselves, and in what order. " In children we ob- 
serve," says Professor James, " a ripening of impulses 
and interests in a certain determinate order. Creeping, 
walking, climbing, imitating vocal sounds, constructing, 
drawing, calculating, possess the child in succession ; 
and in some children the possession, while it lasts, may 
be of a semi-frantic and exclusive sort. Later, the 
interest in any one of these things may wholly fade 



I08 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

away. Of course, the proper pedagogic moment to 
work skill in, and to clench the useful habit, is when the 
native impulse is most acutely present. Crowd on the 
athletic opportunities, the mental arithmetic, the verse- 
learning, the drawing, the botany, or what not, the mo- 
ment you have reason to think the hour is ripe. The 
hour may not last long, and while it continues you may 
safely let all the child's other occupations take a second 
place. In this way you economize time and deepen 
skill; for many an infant prodigy, artistic or mathe- 
matical, has a flowering epoch of but a few months." ^ 

The interests of children at different periods of de- 
velopment have been carefully investigated by Barnes, 
Binet, Preyer, Shaw, and others. Miss Tanner, in her 
book on '' The Child," specifies these interests at each of 
the following stages : (i) Babyhood up to the acquire- 
ment of speech ; (2) early childhood, up to the second 
dentition ; (3) later childhood, to the advent of puberty ; 
and (4) adolescence, to the completion of the bodily 
growth.^ 

At; birth the child is little more than an appetite. 
Food is the only thing that gives it satisfaction. Its 
interest is betrayed by its disposition to put everything 
it can lay hold of into its mouth. Soon it begins to 
manifest an interest in various objects. It reaches out 
and tries to grasp things, and in the effort to do so it is 

^ op, cit., p. 61. 

2 See Tanner, "The Child," Chicago, 1903, Chap. XIII. 



AIETHODS OF AROUSING INTEREST lOQ 

slowly acquiring control of its muscles. Later it begins 
to imitate the movements and speech of those about it. 
** Up to the time of the second dentition," says Miss 
Tanner, ** the interests are, to a large extent, confined to 
his delight in the feeling of his own activities and of his 
increasing control of them. On the physical side this 
appears in his enjoyment of plays that exercise his 
senses, in his practice of all movements that are a little 
difficult for him, and in his use of rhythm and of non- 
sense rhymes. On the mental side, it appears in his 
love of imagining and inventing, in his counting and 
measuring, and in his ceaseless questioning. The union 
of the two, and also the growth of his social interests, is 
marked above all by his love of imitation, the most 
characteristic interest of this period." 

The interests of later childhood are thus summed up : 
"The interest in imitation is less prominent than 
before; the interest in imagining and wondering has 
become more clear-cut and related to the needs of life. 
It shows itself as a greater inter-est in the relation of 
means to end, in the mechanism of Hfe, or, in a more 
abstract form, as a love of classification. The child at 
this time therefore begins to enjoy simple experiments, 
he likes to make collections, he is thinking more in the 
abstract." 

The last educational period is " characterized," to 
quote Miss Tanner once more, not so much " by the rise 
of new interests, as by the broadening and deepening of 



no THE ART OF EDUCATION 

those already existent. . . . The most notable develop- 
ment of the period is doubtless the growth of the inter- 
est in persons, which comes as the direct result of the 
sexual development of this age." 

A "rough sketch" of the order of succession of the 
main classes of interests, based solely on their periods 
of predominance, is thus given by Claparede : ^ *' First 
year, perceptive interest; second and third years, glossic 
interests (Gr. glossa, tongue) ; three to seven years, 
general interests — intellectual awakening (questioning 
age); seven to twelve, special and objective inter- 
ests ; twelve to eighteen and after, ethical and social 
interests." 

This brief resum^of the order of interests is sufficient to 
show that the points of beginning, in the control of inter- 
est, vary with the age of the child. They must be known, 
however, and must not be disregarded. No mistake on 
the part of the teacher is, perhaps, more frequent than 
that of beginning with his own interests rather than 
those of the children. The high school teacher, for 
instance, will sometimes unload upon the boys and the 
girls the identical course that he has taken in the uni- 
versity. Supposedly it was designed for persons of his 
age, knowledge, and experience. He found it interest- 
ing. But to his pupils it is wearisome, because they are 
not properly prepared for its reception ; it is not adapted 
to their needs. Begin, then, with the child ; determine 

1 Op. cit., p. 1 74. 



METHODS OF AROUSING INTEREST III 

his native interests, the interests due to his habits, stage 
of development, and his environment, and make them the 
point of departure. This is the first injunction that must 
be observed in attempting to solve the problem of 
interest. 

4. Select Commendable Interests. — The second injunc- 
tion that should be followed in the art of controlling 
interest is, select as points of departure the interests 
that, when expanded and intensified, will be of most 
value in life. 

In a normal child all interests have their value. Vice, 
it has been said, is only virtue gone to seed. So, from 
our present viewpoint, viciousness, self-indulgence, and 
all the other anti-social qualities arise merely from the 
overstimulation and indulgence of necessary and desir- 
able interests. The glutton, for instance, is the person 
whose appetite for food has been allowed to become 
excessive ; the thief, the person whose desire for property 
has become relatively stronger than high personal inter- 
est, etc. Generally speaking, however, the interests that 
should be selected for stimulation are those that in 
their nature are least selfish. The process of evolution, 
extending through long periods in which intensely sel- 
fish interests were necessary to self-preservation, has 
given to these interests such strength and persistence 
that they need little encouragement in the schools. 
Take, for instance, by way of illustration, the native 
interest arising from the competitive instinct, the interest 



112 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

manifested in the spirit of rivalry. This interest has 
undoubtedly been of great value in the struggle for 
existence. It is therefore deeply implanted. It is easy 
to secure results by appealing to this interest, and it 
should not be disregarded ; but it is not one of the inter- 
ests which should be selected for special encouragement 
and stimulation. Care should be exercised, therefore, 
in marking the papers of children, and in offering prizes, 
to prevent such methods of stimulation from resulting 
in increased selfishness. The method of prize giving in 
unskillful hands may, indeed, lead to decidedly injurious 
effects both upon the successful pupil and upon those 
who are unsuccessful. The winning of a prize is not 
necessarily an evidence of superior merit. The result, 
therefore, may be an unwarranted sense of superiority 
in the successful pupil and an unwarranted feeling of 
inferiority on the part of those who are unsuccessful. 
Both are injured by such feelings. Prize giving, then, 
while not wholly to be condemned, should be resorted 
to only when better methods fail. The disposition to 
beat some other pupil should be turned, when possible, 
into a desire on the part of the child to surpass himself. 
Even the fighting impulse may be turned to advantage 
if the child can be led to exercise it in conquering diffi- 
culties. When a hard problem arouses the combative 
instinct, and thus calls forth the powers of the child and 
exercises them in its solution, this interest becomes one 
of the greatest aids to the teacher. 



METHODS OF AROUSING INTEREST 113 

Select, then, the interests that are unselfish, and en- 
large, expand, and intensify these interests. 

5. Associate New Ideas and Objects with Those That 
Are Natively Interesting. — In the process of expanding 
and deepening interest the greatest care must be exer- 
cised to associate new ideas and objects with those that 
already possess an interest for the child. Assuming 
that the teacher knows what the native interests of the 
child are, and has selected a commendable interest to be 
appealed to, we may now see how an object not in itself 
interesting to the child may acquire an artificial interest. 
It is by associating it with something that is natively 
interesting. " An object not interesting in itself," says 
Professor James, "may become interesting through 
becoming associated with an object in which an interest 
already exists. The two objects grow, as it were, 
together ; the interesting portion sheds its qualities over 
the whole ; and thus things not interesting in their own 
right borrow an interest that becomes as real and as 
strong as that of any natively interesting thing." Again 
he says, "Associate the new with the old in some 
natural and telling way, so that the interest, being 
shed along from point to point, finally suffuses the 
entire system of objects of thought." ^ 

This step in the method of arousing interest might 
be inferred from the mind's process of acquiring knowl- 
edge. It proceeds from the known to the related un- 

1 op. cit., pp. 94, 96. 
I 



114 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

known. Ideas and objects too far removed from 
present knowledge and experience possess no interest. 
We might say, then, that in developing interest we 
must observe the simple yet fundamental psychological 
principles, such as: proceed from the known to the 
related unknown, from the simple to the complex, from 
the concrete to the abstract, from the particular to the 
general, etc. 

6. Interest and Use. — In the presentation of new 
ideas and objects some sense of their personal value 
must be given if interest is to be aroused. If on ex- 
amination a thing is declared by the child to be "no 
good," it at once becomes uninteresting. In all in- 
vestigations of children's interests it has been shown 
that their interest rests, as a rule, upon their idea of 
the utility of an object, or what they can do with it. 
This fact shows clearly enough that if interest is to 
be awakened in an idea, a thing, or a subject, the child 
must be made to feel that it is of some use. This 
feeling may oftentimes be given by the construction 
of a^rtificial opportunities to use whatever may be 
presented. ** The principle here in question," says 
O'Shea, '' is universal in its application. The pupil 
will gain his reading and writing and spelling most 
effectively by using them in a vital way. They must 
not be set apart from his active life, but must be made 
the means of his gaining useful knowledge and re- 
cording it, and communicating with his friends. I see 



METHODS OF AROUSING INTEREST II5 

children as early as the sixth year strive with all their 
might to write well when they wish to send a letter 
to some friend. Then they will give attention to chirog- 
raphy and speUing. I see them digging out words, 
and seeking help from every source, when they wish to 
get at the story in some interesting book. University 
students must be driven to study German or French 
when they have, so far as they can see, no use for 
the language ; but when a professor needs it to carry 
on his researches, or his studies in foreign countries, 
then observe how vigorously he attacks it, and what 
progress he makes." ^ This injunction with respect to 
use might well be inferred from the relation already 
shown between interest and utility. Utility is the basis 
both of instinct and of interest. 

7. Awaken Interest in Remote Ends. — It will easily 
be seen that the remoter the end may be in which 
interest is aroused, the more widely diffused the inter- 
est becomes because of the wider range of means for 
realizing the end, upon which means the interest in 
the end is reflected. If, for instance, a child should 
become sufficiently interested in a great moral person- 
age, so that his interest in that person leads him to 
strive to become like him, everything recognized as 
a necessary means to that end becomes interesting, 
and the problem of interest in his case is practically 

iM. V. O'Shea, "Dynamic Factors of Education," New York, 1906, 
P-43- 



Il6 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

solved. But even if this be not possible, great advan- 
tage is to be derived from interesting the child in an 
object or achievement which cannot be attained or 
accomplished without a series of means. Emerson has 
suggested a good example of such an interest. " In 
London, in a private company," he says, *' I became 
acquainted with a gentleman. Sir Charles Fellowes, 
who, being at Xanthus, in the ^gean Sea, had seen 
a Turk point with his staff to some carved work on 
the corner of a stone almost buried in the soil, 
Fellowes scraped away- the dirt, was struck with the 
beauty of the sculptured ornaments, and, looking 
about him, observed more blocks and fragments like 
this. He returned to the spot, procured laborers, and 
uncovered many blocks. He went back to England, 
bought a Greek grammar and learned the language ; 
he read history and studied ancient art to explain his 
stones ; he interested Gibson the sculptor ; he invoked 
the assistance of the English Government ; he called 
in the succor of Sir Humphry Davy to analyze the 
pigrqents ; of experts in coins, of scholars and con- 
noisseurs ; and at last in his third visit he brought home 
to England such statues and marble reliefs, and such 
careful plans that he was able to reconstruct in the 
British Museum, where it now stands, the perfect 
model of the Ionic trophy monument, fifty years older 
than the Parthenon of Athens, which had been de- 
stroyed by earthquakes, then by iconoclast Christians, 



METHODS OF AROUSING INTEREST II7 

then by savage Turks. But mark that in the task he 
had achieved an excellent education, and had become 
associated with distinguished scholars whom he had in- 
terested in his pursuit ; in short, he had formed a college 
for himself." ^ 

We have, in this account, a glimpse of the entire 
mechanism involved in the process of arousing interest. 
The teacher selects an appropriate object of interest, 
shows its appropriateness by leading the child to rec- 
ognize its personal value, associates it with objects 
of interest, and thus impels the pupil to strive for its 
attainment. In the process of striving to realize an 
end, all things necessary to attain it become interesting 
as means, and these acquired interests become perma- 
nent, by virtue of their relation to the personal fortunes 
of the child and by habit. 

8. Appeal to as Many Senses as Possible. — To awaken 
interest it should go without saying that an appeal 
should be made to every sense possible. It is customary 
to rely to too great an extent upon the auditory sense. 
Opportunities should be given not only to hear, but also 
to see, and, when possible, to touch and to handle. Here 
is suggested the value of models, pictures, maps, etc., 
and the necessity of frequent drawing, modeling, writ- 
ing, etc. 

9. Arrange the Work So That It Will End in Pleasure. 
— It is difficult to arouse in young children interest 

1 Emerson, " Complete Works," Concord Edition, Vol. 10, pp. 145-14^. 



Il8 TEIE ART OF EDUCATION 

in remote ends. With little children the end coalesces 
with the means, as, for instance, in play. Play is almost 
the only thing in which they are interested. It should 
therefore be enlisted, especially in the education of in- 
fancy. Later a gap may be made between the end and 
the means, and it should be rapidly widened. Care 
should always be taken to have the end involve pleasure. 
Every form of effort should be exerted in the direction 
of an end which results in satisfaction, ease, comfort, in 
some agreeable condition of the self. The child should 
be led to work for something, not to avoid something. 
Reliance upon negative interest of any kind to secure 
results is a bad method. It is easy to stimulate children 
to activity through fear of punishment, but only the un- 
skillful teacher resorts to fear. If we reflect upon the 
activities of the world in general, we find that what car- 
ries men and women most successfully through all forms 
of labor and trials is hope, — the hope that their toil and 
suffering, no matter how acute, may result finally in 
satisfaction. Take away this hope, and the mainspring 
of aH civilization would be removed. The school should 
take this lesson from life, and see to it that, artificially 
if necessary, the end of the child's labor be made a feel- 
ing of satisfaction. 

10. Approve when Possible. — If the teacher is able 
to make himself liked by the children, he has it always 
within his power to make the end of commendable ef- 
fort pleasurable by the bestowal of commendation. 



METHODS OF AROUSING INTEREST II9 

Everybody likes to have the approval of those whose 
opinion is respected. It is not surprising, then, that the 
child is stimulated by the approval of a respected teacher. 
Of course, self-approval should bring most satisfaction. 
But the ability to judge one's own work, and the habit 
of doing so, is a manifestation of a high order of char- 
acter, and until that character is reached, the approval 
of the teacher may be used to great advantage. 

II. Be Interesting. — Finally, to arouse the interest 
of children in any subject the teacher must himself be 
interested and interesting. Other things being equal, 
the teacher who is most deeply interested in a subject will 
be most successful in interesting children. Interest, it is 
sometimes said, is contagious ; but this, of course, is only 
a figurative expression. What is meant by it is that the 
teacher who is interested is most likely to present the 
idea or object in an interesting light, is most able to as- 
sociate it with objects natively interesting. 

The teacher, therefore, cannot be too careful to keep 
alive an interest in all that he is called upon to teach. 
This is true not only with respect to school subjects, but 
with regard to all the worthy ends of life. He owes 
this to himself as well as to the children. For unless 
these interests receive proper encouragement, they will, 
by and by, suffer the penalty that nature inflicts upon 
those who do not try consciously to preserve their in- 
terest in commendable objects, and to extend its range. 
The oft-cited example of Darwin's loss of interest 



I20 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

should be a special warning to the teacher, who will 
perhaps not have the compensation that Darwin found 
in his extraordinary interest in nature. ''Up to the age 
of thirty or beyond it," he said, "poetry of many kinds, 
such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, 
Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure, and 
even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shake- 
speare, especially in the historical plays. I have also 
said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and 
music very great, delight. But now for many years I 
cannot endure to read a line of poetry ; I have tried 
lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably 
dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste 
for pictures or music." ^ The neglect on the part of the 
teacher to keep alive a wide range of interests will not 
only result in lessening his power as a teacher, but also 
in rendering it impossible for him to become interested 
in the worthy and beautiful objects of nature and art, 
even if the opportunity should present itself. 

The curse of our modern industrial conditions, at all 
events a great danger incident to the necessity of devot- 
ing sb large a part of life to a chosen occupation, is the 
tendency it has to narrow the interests of all of us to 
the work in which we are necessarily engaged, and to 
the things with which we are brought immediately in 
contact. Hence it is that the conversation of so many 

1 Charles Darwin, " Life and Letters," by George Darwin, New York, 
1901, Vol. I, p. 81. 



IVIETHODS OF AROUSING INTEREST 121 

people is limited to ''shop talk." Hence it is that when 
released from labor so many people "do not know what 
to do with themselves." To avoid this danger, every 
one should take the advice of Goethe and make it a life- 
long practice to read every day a good poem, to look at 
a good picture, and to listen to a good piece of music. 
"Whatever your occupation may be," said Charles Eliot 
Norton, " and however crowded your hours with affairs, 
do not fail to secure at least a few minutes every day for 
the refreshment of your inner life with a bit of poetry." 



CHAPTER Vin 

THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION 

Nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu. — Comenius. 

The nervous apparatus of a developed organism yields to two great 
classes of sensations, which may be roughly classed as externalz.ndi internal. 

— Ward. 

I. The Meaning of Factors. — We have now shown 
that education as an art is hmited wholly to the control 
of the educational forces, that is, the feelings, broadly 
understood, and that it practically amounts to the control 
of interest ; that interest is the particular feeling aroused 
by an object, or an end of action, that is regarded by 
the self as capable of promoting or thwarting its pur- 
poses, and that this feeling has an impulsive power; 
that is, it is the motive to all voluntary action. Some of 
the methods of controlling interest have been suggested 
and discussed. It now remains to consider the means 
that may be employed in the process, that is, the factors 
of education. To these we shall now direct our atten- 
tion. 

The word " factors," in a broad sense, means those ele- 
ments, circumstances, or influences that tend to the pro- 
duction of a given result. With respect to education, 

122 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION 1 23 

however, we shall limit its application to the means of 
stimulating feeling, and especially interest, since with 
educational stimuli alone is the art of education immedi- 
ately concerned. 

2. Heredity. — With this limitation of meaning, it will 
be seen that the ordinary division of the factors of edu- 
cation into heredity and environment is not permissible. 
Heredity is the transmission of mental and physical 
qualities or characteristics from parent to offspring. 
With this transmission education can have nothing to 
do, unless by education is meant the transformation of 
the species. Heredity is properly a factor in organic 
evolution, but not in education. It presents a biological, 
rather than an educational, problem. Its control is a 
matter that properly belongs in the field of Eugenics. 

As a matter of fact, the physical and mental inherit- 
ance of a child is but the stored-up results of past envi- 
ronment, that is, the environment of his ancestors back 
to the beginning of the evolution of life. In the not 
especially enlightening debate that now and then takes 
place in educational circles on the relative influence 
of heredity and environment, those who take the side 
of heredity are merely contending that the influence of 
past environment, extending through millions of years, 
is greater than that which is exerted by the environment 
acting through the brief period of a lifetime ; and this 
is undoubtedly true. A recent writer, in discussing the 
subject of heredity, says that "every man of science 



124 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

who has taken up by exact methods the old case of 
nature against nurture has reached the conclusion that 
inheritance is the important matter, and that environ- 
ment counts for comparatively little." ^ Although this 
remark reminds one of the almost invariably fallacious 
contention, " all history teaches," etc., it may be admitted 
without affecting in the least the truth of the proposition 
that the environment is the sole means of education. 

Again, the effects of environment are often mistaken 
for those of heredity. There are various families that 
are supposed to illustrate in their descendants the power- 
ful influences of heredity. It is said, for instance, that 
the descendants of a certain drunken and dishonest Ger- 
man woman, who died in 1794, have been traced as far 
as they could be found. Seven of them had suffered 
as murderers, seventy-six had been more or less fre- 
quently in prison, costing the country about a million 
dollars in seventy-nine years ; two hundred and eight 
were professional beggars, and one hundred and eighty- 
one were vicious women. The classic examples of 
heredity in this country are the Jukes family and the 
descendants of Jonathan Edwards, the New England 
theologian. The Jukes family, originating in 1720, has 
contributed in five generations twelve hundred known 
descendants, of which three hundred and ten were pro- 
fessional paupers living in almshouses, four hundred 

1 E. T. Brewster, McClure's Mag., Vol. XXXVIII, No. 5 (September, 
1911), p. 495. 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION 1 25 

and forty were physically wrecked by their own wicked- 
ness, one hundred and thirty were convicted criminals, 
sixty were habitual thieves, and seven were murderers. 
More than half of the women were immoral. On the 
other hand, the family of Jonathan Edwards, who died 
in 1758, had, in 1900, one thousand and ninety-four 
known descendants. Of these, thirteen were college 
presidents, three were United States senators, sixty-five 
were college professors, thirty were judges, one hundred 
were lawyers, sixty were physicians, seventy-five were 
officers in the army and navy, one hundred were clergy- 
men, missionaries, ■ etc., sixty were prominent authors 
and writers, two hundred and ninety-five were college 
graduates, eighty held public office, and no member of 
the family had ever been convicted of a crime. These 
two families are often presented as striking examples of 
the influence of heredity, but they might also be cited 
as equally striking examples of the effects of environ- 
ment. It must be obvious that of two children of equal 
natural ability, one born in the Jukes family, the other 
in the Edwards family, the latter would stand a far bet- 
ter chance to become a useful and law-abiding citizen 
than the former, because of his superior environment. 
Think of the incentives of a child born in the Edwards 
family, with hundreds of examples of achievement 
among his own relatives, surrounded by ample material 
means of comfort and culture, with lofty ideals ever 
present to his imagination, and the utter lack of any in- 



126 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

centives at all on the part of a child in such a family as 
that of the Jukes. It has been well said that it is the 
tendency of heredity to create an environment that 
perpetuates the heredity. 

It is impossible, of course, to draw the line between 
the effects of heredity and the effects of environment, 
but there are strong reasons for believing that the ad- 
mittedly powerful influence of heredity is oftentimes 
greatly overestimated. Indeed, evidence might be 
adduced to show that the tendency of modern scientific 
opinion seems to be toward the conclusion that nature 
gives to every generation a fresh start. " There is 
little, if anything, in fact, to justify the conclusion that 
neglect, poverty, and parental ignorance, serious as their 
results are, possess any marked hereditary effects, or 
that heredity plays any significant part in establishing 
the physical degeneracy of the poorer population." 
Such is the testimony of Dr. Alfred Eichholz, one of 
His Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, a Doctor of Medi- 
cine, and formerly Fellow and Lecturer of Emmanuel 
College, Cambridge, before the British Inter-Depart- 
mental Committee on Physical Deterioration,^ and it is 
supported by many other authorities of the medical 
fraternity. But whatever be the truth with respect to 
the relative influence of heredity and environment, all 

^ The quotation is from a partial transcript of the testimony taken by 
the Committee. See John Spargo, " The Bitter Cry of the Children," 
New York, 1906, Appendix C. 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION 1 27 

will agree that, while society, by wise restrictions with 
respect to marriage, should endeavor to bring it about 
that every child should be well born, it should be 
equally concerned that when a child is born into such a 
family, for instance, as that of the Jukes, it be given a 
better chance in hfe by throwing about it an improved 
environment. The environment, using the word in a 
broad sense soon to be indicated, is the sole means to 
be employed in controUing interest, or indeed in the 
entire work of education. 

3. Environment. — By the environment is meant all 
the agencies and influences, material and immaterial, 
that may in any manner affect the activities of the 
child. It includes every form of both extrinsic and in- 
trinsic stimuli. It is objective and subjective. The ob- 
jective environment is the totality of the surrounding 
or extrinsic conditions, the sum of the agencies and 
influences that may affect a child from without. The 
subjective environment consists of the ideas and ideals 
stored up in the mind, which may without the im- 
mediate action of any outside influence become the 
antecedents of action. It is important that the dis- 
tinction between these two forms of the environment 
be thoroughly grasped. Perhaps an illustration may 
help to make it clear. 

Every one is aware that when two persons are brought 
into exactly the same external conditions their behavior 
may be widely different. Apparently they are subjected 



128 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

to the same stimuli. Why, then, are different effects 
produced ? It is because the inner conditions, the en- 
vironments within, the subjective environments, are not 
the same. One, let us say, is a man of culture, the 
other an ignoramus. Stimuli from without must, with 
the one, encounter a large number of counteracting 
stimuli from within, due to the ideas and habits de- 
rived from past experience ; while, in the other, such 
counteracting stimuli are necessarily different or want- 
ing. If ideas were derived only from sensations, that 
is, from objective stimuli, and were not subject to recall, 
there would be no such thing as the subjective environ- 
ment. But ideas derived from sensations may be re- 
called, and by reflection upon them, new and different 
ideas may be formed. These new ideas and those re- 
called may serve the same purpose in stimulating to 
action as the stimuli from the objective environment. 
The subjective environment is therefore as potent a 
factor in the control of the educational forces as the 
objective. The distinction is by no means pedantic. 

4. The Objective Environment. — With this under- 
standing of the environment, it will hardly be denied 
that every form of action must proceed from it. There 
can be no other source. But now that we have drawn 
the distinction between the subjective and the objective 
environment, and now that due account has been taken 
of the two sources of action, we must not fail to per- 
ceive that the art of education is entirely limited, in its 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION 1 29 

effort to control interest and action, to the objective en- 
vironment. It is the only means available for affecting, 
in the slightest degree, the inner life. In the process 
of controlling the current of interest, which is the pri- 
mary object of education, we are as much limited to 
outward circumstances as we would be in the effort to 
control a current of electricity or a current of water. 
The onward flow of a river, for instance, is determined 
by the force of gravity. Because of the existence of 
this force we have a fact in nature that is usually ex- 
pressed in the declaration that water "seeks its level." 
By taking advantage of this fact, or law, the course of 
a river may be deflected or changed. The direction 
and velocity of its current depend upon the slope of its 
bed. It is the bed of the river and its banks, therefore, 
to which attention must be directed if the current is to 
be affected. So, in the case of interest, we recognize 
the fact that activity in accordance with interest is a 
great law of mind. This activity may be affected by the 
teacher only by such a predisposition of circumstances 
as will guide its motive force into the desired channel. 
The only factors under his control are those wholly ob- 
jective. The primary factors of education, then, lie 
within the objective environment. 

The objective environment includes, as was said be- 
fore, all extrinsic circumstances. It presents at least 
eight different phases. They are the physical, the in- 
tellectual, the industrial, the political, the social, the 

K 



130 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

domestic, the esthetic, and the reHgious phases. The 
physical environment is represented by climatic condi- 
tions ; the intellectual, by science ; the industrial, by 
labor ; the political, by the state ; the social, by society 
in the narrow sense ; the domestic, by the family ; the 
esthetic, by the beautiful; and the religious, by the 
good. There is no part of the environment that may 
not affect activity and consequent development. Every 
object the child sees, every book he reads, every friend 
he meets, leaves him a different being from what he was 
before.^ Exposure to the sun will tan his skin. Baro- 
metric variations will affect his nerves, his irritability, 
his temper. The air he breathes, the water he drinks, 
the food he eats, all produce organic changes. It is 
none the less true that evil communications corrupt his 
manners ; that a landscape or a picture may stimulate 
his imagination ; that the proper examples from history 
or fiction may inspire him to heroic action. Feuerbach 
has said, ** Man is what he eats." That is only partly 
true. Man is what he experiences. Thus Tennyson 
writes, in the poem " Ulysses," "I am a part of all 
that I have met." 

The opportunity of education, then, lies in the provi- 
sion or construction of an objective environment, which 
will induce such activity on the part of the child as is 
appropriate to its proper development. The problems 
of education, while they are always problems of interest, 

1 "Emerson's Complete Works," Concord Edition, Vol. 10, p. 129. 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION I3I 

are at the same time problems with respect to the proper 
transformation of the child's environment. Method in 
education is nothing more than the application of intel- 
ligence to the arrangement of the environment so as to 
produce, most economically, the desired effects upon 
the child's activity. 

5. Environment and Action. — Just how the environ- 
ment may stimulate to activity is sufficiently obvious in 
many cases of bodily movement. We feel the heat of 
the sun, for instance, and seek the shade; we are cold 
and approach the fire ; we fear the effects of a storm 
and betake ourselves to shelter. In other words, we act 
in such cases in response to feelings immediately evoked 
by climatic conditions. It is to be noticed, however, 
that the real force in operation is feeling and not the 
environment. The environment in no case should be 
regarded as a force. It affects the thought and life of 
the child only indirectly, that is, through the senses. 
The child approaches the fire, feels the heat, and moves 
away. But the fire is not the force that moves him 
from one position to another. He is shown a picture ; 
he likes it ; it suggests ideas, aspirations, and these will 
influence his conduct ; but the picture affects him only 
through the eye and his emotions. The environment, 
then, acts in education only indirectly, that is, through 
suggestion and imitation ; not as a force, but as an insti- 
gator of force. It suggests ideas, ideas tend to manifest 
themselves in action, and activity results in development. 



132 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

The immediate cause of activity is always some form of 
feeling. 

The exact method by which the environment indirectly 
produces action may be briefly illustrated. Let us sup- 
pose that a picture or a story is exhibited to the child 
and his interest is aroused in it. It suggests an idea ; 
but an idea, as has already been remarked, tends inevi- 
tably to manifest itself in action. If, to the mind of the 
observer, an evil thought is suggested, the tendency, of 
course, is to evil action. The reverse as inevitably hap- 
pens if the suggestion is of the opposite character. The 
presentation of the object, attention, interest, suggestions, 
ideas, feeling, activity, development — these form a 
chain of educational causes, the outer link of which is 
in the environment. 

Suppose, then, once more, that in the work of educa- 
tion we wish to produce a desired form of activity, with 
its resultant form of development. We have only to 
provide the appropriate stimuli. This can be done only 
by bringing the child into responsive contact with such 
elements of the environment as will awaken interest, 
suggest ideas, and evoke feelings that will translate 
themselves into the peculiar activity appropriate to the 
desired form of development. To know what these 
elements are, and to bring them to bear upon the being 
we wish to educate, — that is the art of education. Of 
course, by "bringing them to bear " I mean the awaken- 
ing of interest in them. The mere presentation of objects 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION 



^33 



may produce no appreciable effect. A large part of the 
environment may never become effective in education or 
in life, for the reason that it does not touch " the springs 
of action." The best teacher is merely the one who is 
most skillful in arranging the child's surroundings so 
that the things that attract his attention and move him 
to action are those that will produce the best results. 

6. Institutional Factors. — Organization of any part 
of the environment for a specific purpose constitutes an 
institution. Education, as a conscious process, is largely 
effected by institutional means. Chief among the insti- 
tutional factors of education are the school, the home, 
the Church, and the State. These are, of course, merely 
the most prominent of the institutional agencies which 
effect education. They have been discussed so frequently 
in educational treatises, and from so many points of 
view, that all that is necessary here is to place them in 
the proper perspective and to offer some suggestions with 
respect to their cooperation. They are merely organized 
forms of the environment with varying degrees of educa- 
tional purpose. The thing desired is the intensification 
of this purpose, with the improvement and educational 
cooperation that would necessarily follow. Let us first 
glance briefly at the school. 

7. The School Environment. — The educational knowl- 
edge and interest of a community is best exemplified by 
the character of its school. The school should repre- 
sent a conscious effort on the part of the community to 



134 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

create for its children an ideal environment. It pro- 
vides a building, grounds, and equipment, and employs 
a teacher. The teacher is obviously the most active 
and effective factor of the school, and public interest in 
education in some communities is so far advanced as to 
demand, and to be willing to pay for, a good teacher. An 
effective teacher may accomplish wonders, but even a 
perfect teacher could not achieve the best results with- 
out the assistance of other factors in the environment. 
It is only the exceptional community that recognizes 
that the total results in the scholastic education of its 
children will necessarily depend not only upon the 
character of the teacher, but also upon the character of 
the school buildings and equipment as well. A good 
school implies much more than is usually considered of 
importance in the establishment of a school, particu- 
larly of a public school. The building should embody 
in its construction the most recent knowledge with 
respect to light, heat, ventilation, and general comfort. 
The desks, seats, wall decorations, etc., should be 
selected and arranged with as much regard for their 
cult\iral effects as are the furniture and furnishings of a 
cultured private home. The grounds should be well 
located for all the necessary purposes of play and exer- 
cise ; they should be sufficiently large for a school gar- 
den and a shop, and should be beautified by the art of 
the landscape gardener. Since children are affected by 
all the factors of the school environment, these should 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION 135 

all be made to approximate the ideal. The value of 
the school as an instrument in education varies directly 
with the degree in which this approximation is realized. 
The school should be a social center in which the 
highest ideals of art and culture find expression. 

Of course, a most important feature of the school 
environment is knowledge, the information provided by 
the various subjects in the course of study. Here is a 
chance for a much-needed reform. In the education of 
the past the '' humanities " have played too large a part ; 
nature has been neglected. The dead languages have 
received more attention than the living languages. His- 
tory has devoted too much attention to wars, dynasties, 
and the vicissitudes of the ruling class. When attention 
is turned, as it should be, chiefly to the natural sciences, 
children will come forth from the schools with at least 
an elementary knowledge of cosmic, biological, and 
social evolution. They will have a correct view of the 
world they live in, and will regard themselves not as 
standing outside of and opposed to nature, but as repre- 
senting its highest and noblest product. "The school 
of the twentieth century," says Haeckel, "will have for 
its main object the formation of independent thought, 
with a clear understanding of the knowledge ac- 
quired, and an insight into the natural connection of 
phenomena."^ 

Such a school as is here suggested is an ideal that 

1 Haeckel, " The Riddle of the Universe," p. 364. 



136 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

will seem to some quite remote, but it will be progres- 
sively realized, as the public approaches real earnestness 
in the matter of education, and becomes thoroughly 
acquainted with the significance of the school environ- 
ment When one takes a look at the school it has pro- 
vided, there is an element of amusement, as well as of 
discouragement, in the boast of the average community 
of its interest in education. The spirit of complacent 
satisfaction manifested by the pubHc with respect to the 
average school is comparable only to the naiVete of a 
child. 

8. The School and the Home.-— The home, like the 
school, is merely an artificial phase of the environ- 
ment. The art of education is best subserved when the 
home manifests a high degree of consciousness with 
respect to the educational influence it exerts, and organ- 
izes itself accordingly. Such organization implies the 
introduction of approved school methods into the home. 
The school and the home should cooperate. 

One of the methods of securing the cooperation of the 
home in the work of the school is school visitation. 
Pare;nts are urgently requested to visit the school, and 
it is usually supposed that the visit of a parent is a 
necessary indication of school interest. Such is not 
always the case. A parent may visit the school merely 
to make his word good. His presence there may be 
a bore to him. If, perchance, he professes an inter- 
est in school teaching and school management, it may 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION 137 

be that he will turn out to be an active and incom- 
petent critic, and he will naturally feel a certain resent- 
ment if his criticisms are disregarded. The most 
effective school visitation is on special days set apart 
for the purpose, when all the patrons are invited 
and a special effort is made to engage their interest. 
Parents, as a rule, will be more interested in an exhibit 
of what their children have accomplished under the in- 
struction of the teacher than in the teacher's methods of 
accompUshing his results. For this reason Patrons' 
Days and exhibits of school work are to be commended. 
But school visitation by the patrons of the school is 
not sufficient. There should be home visitation by the 
teacher as well. For all the teacher may know, there 
may be influences in the environment of the home 
that tear down as fast as he builds up. He strives, 
let us say, to cultivate a taste in the minds of the chil- 
dren for good literature. But in the home there may 
be only trashy books containing blood and thunder 
stories, which engage their leisure hours. To put a good 
book, a good journal, a good picture, into such a home 
is to render a valuable service to the children and to in- 
crease the teacher's own chance of success in promoting 
their advancement. Parents will complain sometimes 
that they are too poor to provide such things for their 
children; but in the majority of cases it will be found 
that not poverty, but indifference, is in the way. If the 
money that is spent unwisely by the average family were 



138 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

expended with a distinctly educational purpose, the chil- 
dren might be amply provided with the things necessary 
to promote their education. The poor as well as the rich 
spend money for things that they do not need. Booker 
T. Washington, in speaking of the homes of the negroes 
of the South, says that he sometimes goes into a house 
that is a mere hovel. There is no floor but the ground ; 
no bed except one of poles and brush in a corner ; no 
furniture or utensils except of the rudest construction ; 
but upon the wall he finds an expensive clock, and there is 
not a single member of the family who can tell the time 
of day by it ! Extravagances similar, if not so extreme, 
are practiced in many a home. I have seen the picture 
of the home of an Indian family, in the yard of which 
was a piano used as a coop for chickens. By careful 
and diplomatic effort the teacher may direct the parents 
of the children in his school to a wiser expenditure of 
money in the direction of providing a home environment 
that will cooperate with the environment of the school. 
9. The School and the Church. — For the same reason 
that the art of education must endeavor to bring into 
harmony the environment of the home and the school, 
it must also invite and secure the cooperation of the 
Church. The school and the Church are really one in 
purpose so far as the children are concerned. The ob- 
ject of each is instruction. This is effected by bringing 
them into contact with knowledge, ideas, personalities, 
and purposive combinations of material circumstances. 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION 1 39 

This unity of purpose should not be disregarded. It 
should result, so far as possible, in a unity of means and 
methods. Here again the teacher is an important fac- 
tor. Even if he be indifferent to the claims of orthodox 
religion, his art will not allow him to disregard the 
Church as an element of the moral and ethical environ- 
ment that exerts its influence upon the development 
of the child. The qualities of art and music and the 
character of instruction in the Church cannot be matters 
of indifference to him. He strives in the school to de- 
velop an interest in music. In the congregation of the 
Church, or perhaps in the choir, the children sing. He 
must be interested in what and how they sing. In 
the school he encourages a love of good books; in the 
Church the attention of the children is drawn to the 
Book of Books ; sometimes, it must be confessed, in a way 
that breeds repulsion. The pastor instructs the people 
of the community ; the teacher will endeavor to secure 
his assistance in the diffusion of sound ideas with respect 
to education. But the teacher should not be expected 
to assume the entire responsibility of securing the co- 
operation of the school and the Church. The relation 
between these two institutions should be reciprocal. 
The Church should definitely recognize the school as a 
cooperating agency. It can do much to stimulate the 
work of the school by the courteous recognition of the 
teacher, by planning cooperative work, by devoting a 
Sunday now and then entirely to the subject of educa- 



I40 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

tion. It is absolutely essential to the successful prac- 
tice of the art of education that these two institutions 
shall be in the closest sympathy and give mutual help 
and cooperation. 

Sectarian teaching, however, must be carefully ex- 
cluded from the school. The various forms of belief 
are matters of private concern, and should be left to pri- 
vate attention. The only subjects of a religious nature 
to which the school may properly give attention are 
ethics and comparative religion. It will not be neces- 
sary to exclude the Bible, but biblical history should be 
taught as the history of Greece and Rome should be 
taught, that is, with the same expectation of finding 
myths and legends in the one case as in the other ; and 
the Bible should be studied, not as a whole, but in care- 
fully selected extracts. There is no good reason why 
in the presentation of the Bible to children the same ex- 
purgation should not be practiced as is exercised upon 
the works, say, of Shakespeare. 

10. The School and the State. — What has already been 
said with rescard to the relation of the school and the 
home and the Church perhaps sufficiently indicates the 
relation that should exist between the school and the 
State. By the State is meant, of course, the people as 
politically organized. The school is an institution estab- 
lished by the State. The State, then, endeavors to prac- 
tice the educational art. It is, in a sense, the controlling 
factor. If education is a result of the environment and 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION I4I 

depends entirely upon it, the State is neglectful of its 
own purpose if it permits any part of the environment to 
act unfavorably upon the child. It should recognize, at 
once, that its purpose cannot possibly be realized if it 
permits any part of the lives of the children to be spent 
in an unfavorable environment. For exactly the same 
reason that it establishes the school, and endeavors to 
create an ideal environment there, it should attack and 
improve the environment of the slums and of backward 
rural communities. For exactly the same reason that it 
builds schoolhouses and employs teachers, it should pro- 
hibit child labor that is injurious, enforce compulsory edu- 
cation, and do all else that can be done to improve the 
environment to the end that its citizens may be properly 
educated. It has been well said that " If the modern 
state gives every citizen a vote, it should also give him 
the means of developing his reason by a proper educa- 
tion, in order to make a rational use of his vote for the 
commonweal." A " proper education " is the result of 
the influence, not of a part, but of the whole of the envi- 
ronment. 

II. The School and the Community. — By the commu- 
nity is here meant all the organized and unorganized 
social elements of the environment not included in the 
institutions already named. All these different phases 
and elements of the environment affect, constantly, 
though it may be unconsciously, the success of the school 
and the life of the child. All who are interested in ed- 



142 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

ucation should consciously strive to make these agencies 
educationally effective. The wide-awake teacher will 
ally himself, in a tactful way, with community interests, 
and especially with those most closely related to the life 
and conduct of his pupils. 

To mention but a single opportunity of the teacher 
for the exercise of a helpful educational influence in the 
community, I will call attention to the possibilities of 
directing the various forms of amusement practiced at 
"parties" and "socials." Suppose, for instance, that 
the teacher is invited to attend one of these functions, 
and finds, as it sometimes will happen, that the games 
and plays there indulged in are more or less undignified 
and degrading. He can be no more indifferent with re- 
spect to them than to other phases of the environment. 
In such a case he will endeavor skillfully to lead the 
young people to higher forms of amusements. Educa- 
tion demands that all phases of the environment be 
brought into harmonious cooperation in order to produce 
ideal educational results. 

No teacher, then, who is really interested in the work 
of education and not merely in drawing his salary, can 
be content if the influences of the school, so carefully 
devised and exerted, are counteracted by the unfavor- 
able environment of the home and the community. 
While his primary object will necessarily be the per- 
fection of the influences of the school in order that 
these may be most effective, he cannot be indifferent 



THE FACTORS OF EDUCATION I43 

to the character of the homes of the children, and 
the paternal and community interest in education. 
Every teacher knows that he must please the patrons 
of his school, otherwise he will soon be obliged to 
resign. Some, indeed, are so anxious to please that 
they become obsequious. But the effective teacher 
endeavors to please in order that he may the better 
secure active interest and cooperation in the work that 
he is trying to do. He will employ every legitimate 
means of making the community, the home, the church, 
and the state environment reenforce the educational 
influences of the school. The chief difficulties he will 
encounter will be due to public indifference to new 
ideas, and the disposition to approve only what corre- 
sponds to established precedent. 



CHAPTER IX 

IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 

A genuine interest in the ideal indicates of necessity an equal interest 
in all the conditions of its expression. — Dewey. 

Still, through our paltry stir and strife, 

Glows down the wished Ideal, 
And Longing moulds in clay what Life 

Carves in the marble real. — Lowell. 

I. The Subjective Environment. — In the preceding 
chapter, attention was devoted exclusively to the ob- 
jective elements of the environment. We saw how they 
may influence action through the senses ; how they 
are organized into various institutions, and how the 
cooperation of all these institutions is demanded for 
the realization of educational purposes. 

We have learned, however, that there is another 
phase of the environment ; that the immediate stimulus 
to action may lie within the mind as well as without ; 
that ideas, although originally derived from contact 
with the objective environment, are stored up in the 
memory and are, therefore, subject to recall ; that when 
so recalled they may induce action ; that by reflection, 
that is, by a comparison, a combination, or a fusion 
of ideas, new ideas may be constructed, and that these 

144 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR m EDUCATION I45 

in turn may stimulate to action. Now the stock of 
ideas stored in the memory and those arising from 
reflection constitute the subjective environment. To 
this part of the environment, and its relation to interest, 
we shall now turn our attention. 

2. The Objects of Interest. — Interest, as has already 
been suggested, implies both a feeling and an object. 
No one can be interested without being interested in 
something. That something may be either material 
or immaterial. It may be a book, for instance, its 
size, type, style of binding, etc., or it may be an idea 
or ideal derived from reading the book. The lover 
of nature is interested in trees, flowers, a landscape, 
a sunset — the material objects about him, with their 
various combinations of form and color. But he will 
probably be interested also in purely mental conceptions 
of such objects, conceptions which have no objective 
reality. The business man is interested in commodities, 
prices, markets, means of production and transporta- 
tion, and in all material things necessary to the conduct 
and success of his business. But he will also be in- 
terested in schemes for increasing his profits, in plans 
for finding or creating new markets, in standards of 
business conduct, and in general conceptions of what 
constitutes business success ; all of which are ideals, 
since they have complete existence only in his own 
mind. The swain is interested in his lass, but the 
deeper his love, the more likely is he to idealize the 



146 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

object of his affection until she becomes a phantom, 
a mere figment of the brain, 

" an ideal, ' 
A creature of his own imagination, 
A child of air, an echo of his heart." 

There is, then, an ideal world as well as a real one, 
and purely mental constructions in the form of ideas, 
purposes, and ideals may be the objects of interest as 
well as the concrete existences of the real world about 
us. Thus we see that the subjective environment as 
well as the objective offers appropriate objects of 
interest. 

3. Ideas and Ideals. — The subjective environment, 
while it is, of course, entirely ideational, may be di- 
vided properly into ideas and ideals. An idea is merely 
a mental image or picture. It may be a mere mental 
reconstruction of what has been thought, imagined, or 
perceived. Ideas are the materials of thought. The 
ideal is sometimes defined as the opposite of the real, 
that is, so as to include that which exists only in idea. 
With this definition it applies to all mental conceptions ; 
alike to those " moving about in worlds not realized," 
and, it may be, unrealizable, and to those that find at 
least approximate realization in the products of art and 
civilization. But the word is also used to designate 
standards of human perfection, conceptions of what is 
desirable in individual and social life. Thus it carries 
with it a sense of desirability or of oughtness, and in- 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION I47 

eludes " what we long for," and all our conceptions of 
what ought to be. This is the sense in which the word 
is here employed. We may define an ideal, then, as a 
mental conception projected, so to speak, for future 
realization or attainment. The objects of interest, then, 
so far as the subjective environment is concerned, are 
ideas and ideals. Education should result in awakening 
interest in both. 

There is a marked difference, however, between an 
interest in ideas and an interest in ideals. " There are," 
says Davidson, " two kinds of distinctions : distinctions 
of fact, and distinctions of worth. We distinguish one 
thing from another thing; what is from what is not. 
Such distinctions are distinctions of fact. But sometimes 
our attention is directed to the relation between a fact 
and a certain ideal in our minds. We feel that such 
and such conduct not only was, but that it oicghtto have 
been, or that it was, but that it ought not to have been. 
Now the interests that grow out of distinctions of fact 
as such are interests in ideas ; while the interests that 
grow out of distinctions of worth are interests in ideals'' ^ 

An interest in ideas, then, may have no uplifting, no 
ethical or moral significance. There may be a strong 
appetite for facts without noble and generous impulses. 
Sometimes we are surprised by the pettiness, narrow- 
ness, and lack of idealism in men who are recognized as 
scientific specialists. In such cases there is an interest 

1 Quoted by Gordy, " New Psychology," p. 127. 



148 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

in ideas, but not in ideals. Science may, indeed, be 
taught without much broadening moral influence, and 
there are certain sciences the pursuit of which offers 
small opportunity for the development of interest in 
ideals. Other sciences are rich in opportunities for 
awakening this form of interest, but the effect of these 
will depend largely upon the manner in which they are 
presented. Gordy cites the teaching of history as an 
illustration of the possible development through that 
subject of the two kinds of interest. "Taught in the 
right way," he says, ** a study of it will develop in the 
pupil both kinds of interests. A pupil will be led to see 
the relation between events and their causes. He will 
see, for example, how the weak government of the Con- 
federation was the natural expression of the lack of 
national patriotism, how the partialities of the Jefferson- 
ian Republican party for France, in 1793, and of the 
Hamiltonian Federalist party for England, were the 
natural results of differences in temperament, surround- 
ings, and the like. This perception of the relation 
between events and their causes awakens an interest 
which illustrates what I mean by interest in ideas. It 
is purely intellectual. It may be felt by a man who 
thinks that the only mistake made by Benedict Arnold 
and Aaron Burr was in not succeeding. An interest in 
the perception of numerical relations, or of mathematical 
relations in general is of the same sort : it is an interest 
in ideas — not ideals. 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 149 

" But a pupil may also get from a study of history a 
radically different kind of interest. He may be led to 
see what the patriotic self-sacrifice of men has contributed 
to the making of our country what it is — that at every 
critical period men have been found who preferred to 
sacrifice their private comforts to the public good. And 
such perceptions may develop in him an admiration for 
genuine patriotism, and may slowly kindle in him a re- 
solve to animate them. This is an interest in ideaUr 

An interest in ideas, then, is manifested in a desire 
for knowledge, a love of study, a passion for truth. 
The awakening of such an interest is a desirable end in 
education. It should be kept constantly in view in the 
presentation of the different subjects in the course of 
study, but at the same time it should be remembered 
that an interest in ideals is especially valuable, since 
moral character depends upon this form of interest. 
Ideals determine conduct. " As a man thinketh in his 
heart, so is he." You cannot tell much about a man by 
the sciences he cultivates, but if he reveals to you his 
ideals of life, you know the man. Ideals, then, are of 
incalculable value as a means of education. 

4. The Educational Value of Ideals. — Teachers of all 
ages have recognized the value of ideals of veracity, 
valor, virtue, and of all the other desirable human quali- 
ties, as factors in education. Such ideals are embodied 
in the lives of great men. Hence, biography has always 
been regarded as a valuable means of instruction. 



150 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

Plato, in the scheme of education set forth in the 
"Republic," assumes that the lives of the gods and of 
heroes will have a powerful influence over the minds of 
the young, and cautions against attributing to such 
exemplars any unworthy attributes. He would expunge 
from the poets passages that put them in a bad light. 
"We shall do well," he says, "to strike out the dirges 
put in the mouths of famous men, and make them over 
to women (and those not the best of their sex), and to 
the baser sort of men, in order that those whom we pro- 
fess to be training up to be the guardians of their country 
may scorn to act like such persons." ^ Men of all ages 
since Plutarch's time have drawn from his " Lives of 
Illustrious Men," material for the nourishment of their 
virtues. " The great lesson of Biography," says Dr. 
Samuel Smiles, " is to show what man can be and do at 
his best. A noble life, fairly put on record, acts as an 
inspiration to others. It exhibits what life is capable 
of being made. It refreshes our spirit, encourages our 
hopes, gives us new strength and courage and faith — 
faith in others as well as in ourselves. It stimulates our 
aspirations, rouses us to action, and incites us to become 
copartners with them in their work. To live with such 
men in their biographies, and to be inspired by their 
examples, is to live with the best of men and to mix in 
the best company." 

The greatest of all teachers presented himself to the 

1 The " Republic » of Plato, Book 2. 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 151 

world as an ideal of individual life. " I am the way, 
the truth, and the life," he declared, and, " I, if I be 
lifted up, will draw all men unto me." What he doubt- 
less meant was that if his life and character be lifted up 
and made the objects of thought as the ideals of men, 
they would draw men onward toward their realization. 
Jesus presented also to the world a social ideal. He 
talked of the kingdom of Heaven, by which he meant an 
ideal society to be realized some time, somewhere, in 
which the spirit of human brotherhood should dominate 
in all the affairs of men. He recognized that in the 
dust and conflict of life men need such an ideal to which 
they may now and then lift their eyes, and from which 
they may draw inspiration. '' Where there is no vision 
the people perish." 

That such ideals exercise a powerful influence on the 
minds of men is illustrated in the development of every 
nation, and particularly in the life of every social 
reformer. The heroes of our country were inspired 
by an ideal conception of what they wished the nation 
to become. Washington at Valley Forge, for instance, 
was sustained not only by his faith in the Almighty, 
but by his ideal of a nation freed from the domina- 
tion of the Mother Country. In the most trying hours 
of the Rebellion, some one endeavored to discourage 
Lincoln by asking him how long he thought it would 
be before the South would yield and lay down its arms. 
He replied, " All we can do is to keep pegging away." 



152 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

Evidently he did not mean that the pegging away should 
be without purpose. His ideal was the restoration of 
the Union, and all his efforts were exerted in the direc- 
tion of realizing that ideal. His paramount purpose was 
to save the Union. With what persistence he pursued 
that purpose ! He wrote to Greeley, " If I could save the 
Union without freeing any slave, I would do it — if I 
could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it — 
and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others 
alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery 
and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to 
save this Union ; and what I forbear I forbear because 
I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I 
shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing 
hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I believe 
doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct 
errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new 
views so fast as they shall appear to be true views." ^ So 
also in the case of William Lloyd Garrison. What 
enabled him to endure the taunts and persecution of the 
"broadcloth mob" in Boston.-^ What gave him the 
coiirage to declare : " I will be as harsh as truth ; as 
uncompromising as justice ; I will not equivocate ; I will 
not excuse ; I am in earnest and I will be heard ! " 
What, indeed, but his ideal of a Republic in which all 
men should be free ? There is no reformer in the history 

^Raymond, "The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln," New 
York, 1865, p. 253. 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 1 53 

of the world who has not been sustained and encouraged 
by an ideal of individual or social life, and every reform 
that has been initiated is a practical illustration of the 
influence of the ideal. 

Literature is full of illustrations of the drawing, the 
sustaining, and the uplifting power of ideals. Haw- 
thorne's story of the Great Stone Face is an example. 
The little story of how the violet got its color by gazing 
into the blue heavens is a symbolical presentation of 
the same thing. Lowell's poem, *' Longing," is based 
upon the same thought. The fact that ideals exert a 
wonderful influence upon action, and to a considerable 
extent determine character will need no further illustra- 
tion. 

5. Explanation of the Effects of Ideals. — There is 
nothing mysterious about the influence that ideals ex- 
ert upon conduct and life. If we will recall what was 
said in the effort to show how the environment exer- 
cises an influence upon action, the explanation will be 
obvious. The environment, it was there pointed out, 
suggests or occasions ideas, and ideas inevitably tend 
to manifest themselves in action. The "tendency to 
act " is an inevitable accompaniment of an idea. Now 
an ideal is but an idea or a complex of ideas. This be- 
ing the case, it is plain that the ideal, a manifestation 
of the subjective environment, must act in the same 
way. From this inevitable tendency of the ideal to get 
itself realized in life we deduce the great law that ideals 



154 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

mold character. Whom the child honors, he imitates. 
Wishing is the secret of becoming. " Your ideal is a 
prophecy of what you shall at last unveil." 

If ideals are thus so influential in molding character, 
it is evident that they are a most valuable means to be 
employed in the art of education. Care must be taken 
to arouse the interest of pupils in the right kind of 
ideals. One of the main functions of the teacher, in- 
deed, is to bring before the mind of his pupils lofty and 
worthy ideals of conduct and character, as exemplified 
in noble men and women, real or fictitious, and, by creat- 
ing an interest in them, to awaken the impulse to com- 
mendable action. The performance of this function 
presents an opportunity for the exercise of the highest 
intelligence and skill. 

6. The Control of Ideals. — Since an ideal entertained 
is always an object of interest, the process of controlling 
the formation of ideals is practically the same as the 
process of controlling or directing interest. The trans- 
formation of ideals is the transformation of one form of 
interest. The methods to be employed in supplanting 
ideals by other ideals of a higher nature are the same 
as those already considered in Chapter VI. We may 
say, however, even at the risk of some repetition, that 
success in the practice of the art of education, as it here 
applies, involves a careful study of the ideals of children 
at different periods of their development. It will be 
found, of course, that they vary in different children. 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 1 55 

and in the same children at different times. If there 
is any truth in the culture epoch theory, it should throw- 
some light on the subject. For if the evolution of the 
child recapitulates that of the race in any marked de- 
gree, his mental evolution must illustrate to the same 
degree the evolution of ideals in the race. Let us sup- 
pose that the child is at an age when military ideals 
make their strongest appeal to him. The wise teacher 
will not undertake to supplant that kind of ideal sud- 
denly, but will emphasize the qualities of courage, devo- 
tion to duty, patriotism, and the like, and make them as 
conspicuous as possible in the ideals to which the child 
is naturally drawn. If the teacher finds, for instance, 
that the ideal of a pupil is embodied in a swashbuckler 
hero of blood and thunder fiction, he should not begin 
by denouncing such a hero. He should accept the situa- 
tion, manifest an interest, if possible, in the idol of the 
pupil, and at the same time present for his considera- 
tion a type of hero not dissimilar, but one who manifests 
qualities of a higher kind. A boy who is interested in 
a dime novel hero is perhaps chiefly attracted by the 
adventurous experiences of the character, and by his 
skill in extricating himself from dangerous situations. 
But there are men of lofty type whose experience and 
character are similar, only their adventures have had 
social significance, and their skill was a manifestation 
of lofty intelHgence rather than of craft and finesse, 
qualities exempHfied to an equal degree, perhaps, in 



156 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

some of the lower animals. To these men of nobler 
type his attention should be drawn. In a word, the 
process of directing a child's ideals should consist in 
the skillful exposure to his mind of ideals loftier than 
his own, but akin to them. The end of the process is 
the attachment of the child's mind to the truly great 
characters of history, and, if possible, to Him whose 
life best exemplifies the supreme virtues of men, an 
ideal character in whom there is *' neither variableness 
nor shadow of turning." 

One further word while we are on this phase of the 
subject. One needs only to reflect upon one's own ex- 
perience to realize that, with or without education, ideals 
undergo a constant change. Sometimes the change is 
upward, sometimes downward. Education fails unless, 
from the beginning of the school course to its end, the 
ideals of the children become higher and higher. There 
is nothing more pitiable than an aged man or woman 
in whose life the change of ideals has been downward 
rather than upward, and whose age is filled with regret 
at the loss of youth's ideals. 

" O glorious Youth, that once wast mine! 

O high Ideal ! all in vain 
Ye enter at this ruined shrine 

Whence worship ne''er shall rise again ; 
The bat and owl inhabit here, 

The snake nests in the altar-stone, 
The sacred vessels moulder near, 

The image of the God is gone." 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 1 57 

7. Personal Ideals of Success. — Taking into consid- 
eration, then, the transforming influence of the ideal, as 
already explained, the school can render neither the 
child nor society a better service than to awaken in the 
child a deep and permanent interest in worthy personal 
ideals of success. The school is a failure in proportion 
as it leaves the child with the idea that success, getting 
on in the world, is merely making money or achieving 
notoriety. With the vast amount of attention now de- 
voted in our literature to men of wealth, with the recog- 
nition accorded them, and with the almost general 
disposition to defer to them, if not to respect and honor 
them, it is not surprising that a large percentage of 
children aspire to riches and accept as their ideal men 
who have most succeeded in the economic struggle for 
material goods. In various studies of children's ambi- 
tions it has been shown that, with both boys and girls, 
money is the leading motive. This motive, while a most 
desirable one, should not be permitted to dominate. 
The school, therefore, must endeavor to correct the mis- 
direction of interest through the influence of sordid 
ideals outside the school. This is not to be accomplished 
by imparting precepts, as, for instance, " The love of 
money is the root of all evil." It is to be effected by 
leading the pupils to recognize the difference between 
men of means dishonestly acquired and men who have 
made money and used it without sacrifice of honor or 
honesty. They must be given true standards of judg- 



158 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

ment with respect to men. They must be made to 
reaHze that society is in no great need of men who will 
get rich at any cost, but that it is sadly in need of the 
type of man who would scorn riches obtained by sharp 
practice. They must be brought to recognize that the 
true measure of a man is not what he has, but what he 
is ; not his possessions, but his use of them and his means 
of acquiring them. The Bible asserts that a good name 
is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving 
favor rather than silver and gold. The truth of this 
must be brought home to the children. Their ideals of 
success must be in terms of life and not in terms of the 
means of life, of which wealth is but one. Education 
should result in a perception of the fact that while wealth 
and economic success are good, there are many things 
that are better. The wealth that should be cultivated 
is wealth of character. There is deep significance in 
the well-known passage from Ruskin. *' There is no 
wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, 
of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest 
whjch nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy 
human beings ; that man is richest who, having perfected 
the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the 
widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means 
of his possessions, over the lives of others." In the 
sense in which Ruskin employs the term, wealth may be 
accumulated without impoverishing any one, and it is the 
only wealth that may not take wings and fly away. 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 1 59 

Life, then, with all that the word means, is the ideal 
that should be entertained, and material wealth should 
be regarded as what it really is ; namely, a means to the 
higher end. 

When Alexander, on passing through Corinth, stopped 
to see Diogenes, who happened to be there at the time, 
he found him basking in the sun in the grove of Craneum, 
where he was mending his tub. ** I am," said he to him, 
" the great king Alexander " ; and '' I," replied the 
philosopher, ** am the dog Diogenes." " Are you not 
afraid of me ? " continued Alexander. ** Are you good 
or bad } " asked Diogenes. " Good," rejoined Alexander. 
"And who need be afraid of one who is good?" an- 
swered Diogenes. Alexander, it is said, admired the 
penetration and freedom of Diogenes ; and after some 
conversation, he said to him, " I see, Diogenes, that you 
are in want of many things, and I shall be happy to 
serve you; ask of me what you will." "Retire, then, 
a little to one side," replied Diogenes ; " you are de- 
priving me of the sun." Alexander was astonished at 
seeing a man so much above every human concern. 
" Which of the two is richest," said Diogenes, " he who 
is content with his cloak and bag, or he for whom a 
whole kingdom does not suffice, and who is daily expos- 
ing himself to a thousand dangers in order to extend 
it .? " 1 

1 This story is from " Lives of the Ancient Philosophers," translated 
from the French of Fenelon by Rev. John Cormack, New York, 1846, p. 227. 



l6o THE ART OF EDUCATION 

The point of this story is not that Diogenes presents 
for us a satisfactory ideal of life. Diogenes and Alex- 
ander present two extreme ideals; but lofty ideals of 
success should be so firmly fixed in children's minds 
through conscious attention to the matter in the schools 
that when they go out into the world, and the sordid 
ideals of modern industrial success are interposed be- 
tween them and the ideals that the school has presented, 
they will have the strength of mind and the independence 
of character to say, " Stand out of my sunlight ! " 

Another ideal that appeals particularly to boys is 
that of fame, and sometimes no careful distinction is 
drawn between fame and notoriety. The dangers in 
this direction are amply illustrated by the disposition of 
boys to ideahze the military heroes of history, some of 
whom are only murderers on a large scale. With the 
attention devoted in most histories to these heroes it is 
not surprising that they exercise such a powerful influ- 
ence over the minds of boys. This influence will be 
extremely harmful unless the aspiration for fame is re- 
strained and corrected by a true conception of values 
with regard to the means of acquiring it. 

Napoleon is a case in point. As a youth he reveled 
in Plutarch's " Lives of Illustrious Men "; Alexander and 
Caesar became his heroes. "Who would not willingly 
be stabbed," said he, *'if only he could have been 
Caesar ? One feeble ray of his glory would be an ample 
recompense for sudden death." He attained his am- 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION l6l 

bition. He became the most famous man in the world. 
For that reason he oftentimes absorbs the interest of the 
ambitious boy. What a difference in the world's his- 
tory it would have made if the interest of the boy 
Napoleon had somehow been aroused in, let us say, Galileo 
or Savonarola or St. Francis. Admitting the commend- 
able qualities in the character of Napoleon, no teacher 
should be satisfied to leave a boy fashioning his life 
after him. Every schoolboy should read, until deeply 
imprinted on his memory, the musings of Robert G. 
Ingersoll at the tomb of Napoleon. 

''A little while ago," he said, "I stood by the grave of 
the old Napoleon — a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, 
fit almost for a deity dead — and gazed upon the sarcoph- 
agus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last 
the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balus- 
trade and thought about the career of the greatest sol- 
dier of the modern world. 

*'I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, 
contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon — I saw 
him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris — I 
saw him at the head of the army of Italy — I saw him 
crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his 
hand^ — I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the 
pyramids — I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the 
eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw 

1 It was at Arcole that Napoleon caught up the standard and planted it 
upon the bridge. 
M 



1 62 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

him at Marengo — at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw 
him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the 
cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's 
withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and 
disaster — driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris, 
— clutched like a wild beast — banished to Elba. I 
saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of 
his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Water- 
loo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck the for- 
tunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. 
Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out 
upon the sad and solemn sea. 

*' I thought of the orphans and widows he had made — 
of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the 
only woman who had ever loved him, pushed from his 
heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said, I 
would rather have been a French peasant and worn 
wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a 
vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing 
purple in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun. I would 
rather have been that poor peasant, with my loving wife 
by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky — with 
my children upon my knee and their arms about me — I 
would rather have been that man, and gone down to the 
tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have 
been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, 
known as Napoleon the Great." 

So said Colonel IngersoU, and probably many others 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 1 63 

would feel the same if they would but reflect that the 
career of Napoleon meant the sacrifice of two million, 
three hundred thousand men, the flower of France ; 
that the entire number destroyed in the Napoleonic wars 
was seven million; that, whatever may be said of the 
genius of the great conqueror, which is undeniable, he 
was a cruel and selfish man. We may recognize the 
marvelous ability of Napoleon and the beneficial results 
that followed from his career, without losing sight of 
the fearful sacrifice involved. History is improperly 
taught if it leaves in the boy's imagination only pictures 
of the "glorious" moments in the life of Napoleon and 
dreams of unlimited power. His name should suggest 
the deadly clash of thousands of armed men, men who 
for the most part had no real grievance against each 
other, but were instigated by the military ambition of 
the man who was consciously emulating the career of 
his ideals, Caesar and Alexander. With the contempla- 
tion of his example there should come to the imagina- 
tion the rattle of musketry, the sound of cannon, the hiss 
and explosion of shells, mutilated bodies, livid corpses, 
and all the fearful sights and sounds that go to make up 
a battlefield. There should be some thought of desolated 
homes, of the agony of those who, with dim eyes and 
blanched cheeks, searched through the published lists 
of the killed and wounded, fearing to find the name of 
father or son, husband or brother; of the tears of 
parents and widows, and the cries of orphans. The 



164 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

boy who has been thus taught, who appreciates both 
the greatness of Napoleon and the unutterable woe and 
misery that followed in his wake, will not be likely to 
make him his hero and his beau ideal. He will rather 
be mclined to say that, after all, it would be better to be 
a poor man, earning one's bread in the sweat of one's 
face ; to live in obscurity, and, dying, go down into ever- 
lasting oblivion, unsung by genius and unwept and un- 
honored save by those one loves, than to have been this 
most famous man in the world's history. 

8. Ideals of Service. — Society can measure success 
only in terms of service. Wealth and fame are noble 
ambitions if duly subordinated to the ideal of service. 
The gospel of education, like that of religion, is service by 
love. The school, therefore, should exalt the lives of men 
and women who have best served the race. In times 
past the warrior might well serve as a conspicuous exam- 
ple. Without his courage and devotion the liberties and 
opportunities we prize might have been destroyed. But 
to-day the most valuable servant of society is likely to be 
found in the peaceful arts, in the exploitation of nature, 
in increasing production, in the battle with poverty, in 
the conquest of disease. It is here that the school 
should look for ideals to function in the task of educat- 
ing the rising generation, the end being the develop- 
ment in the child's mind of the ambition expressed by 
George Eliot in a poem with which we may well con- 
clude this chapter. 



IDEALS AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION 1 65 

THE CHOIR INVISIBLE 

O may I join the choir invisible 

Of the immortal dead who live again 

In minds made better by their presence ; live 

In pulses stirred to generosity, 

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 

For miserable aims that end with self, 

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 

And with their mild persistence urge man's search 

To vaster issues. 

So to live is heaven : 
To make undying music in the world. 
Breathing as beauteous order, that controls 
With growing sway the growing life of man. 
So we inherit that sweet purity 
For which we struggled, failed, and agonized 
With widening retrospect that bred despair. 
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued, 
A vicious parent shaming still its child, — 
Poor anxious penitence, — is quick dissolved ; 
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies, 
Die in the large and charitable air; 
And all our rarer, better, truer self. 
That sobbed religiously in yearning song. 
That watched to ease the burden of the world, 
Laboriously tracing what must be, 
And what may yet be better — saw within 



1 66 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

A worthier image for the sanctuary, 
And shaped it forth before the multitude 
Divinely human, raising worship so 
To higher reverence more mixed with love — 
That better self shall live till human Time 
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky 
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb 
Unread forever. 

This is life to come, 
Which martyred men have made more glorious 
For us who strive to follow. May I reach 
That purest heaven ; be to other souls 
The cup of strength in some great agony. 
Enkindle generous ardor ; feed pure love ; 
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty — 
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, 
And in diffusion ever more intense. 
So shall I join the choir invisible 
Whose music is the gladness of the world. 

— George Eliot. 



CHAPTER X 

THE FINISHED PRODUCT 

Every sharply defined grade of human culture, such as that under which 
we now live, demands a system of education that shall embrace the whole 
being of man, his mental and natural sides, and all his varied affinities and 
relations, and shall therefore, as true to both man and child, educate the 
latter progressively and by development, in such a way as to produce and 
constantly maintain a sense of unity and completeness running through 
the whole of its life. — Froebel. 

Education should be as broad as man. Whatever elements are in him, 
that should foster and demonstrate. If he be dexterous, his tuition should 
make it appear ; if he be capable of dividing men by the trenchant sword 
of his thought, education should unsheathe and sharpen it ; if he is one to 
cement society by his all-reconciling affinities, oh ! hasten their action ! If 
he is jovial, if he is mercurial, if he is great-hearted, a cunning artificer, a 
strong commander, a potent ally, ingenious, useful, elegant, witty, prophet, 
diviner, — society has need of all these. — Emerson. 

I. Definition. — We have now indicated the place of 
education among the arts, its essential nature, the fun- 
damental force to which it must be applied, and the 
method and means by which the control of this force 
may best be effected. As yet, however, nothing has 
been said about the end of such control. We therefore 
turn our attention now to the product of education. 

An art implies an artist, an ideal conception, the 
material means of its realization, and a finished product. 
This is obviously true of the " fine " arts, such, for in- 

167 



1 68 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

stance, as sculpture, painting, poetry, music, and archi- 
tecture. It is equally true of all the other arts. In 
horticulture, for instance, the gardener is the artist, the 
flower or fruit he wishes to produce is the ideal concep- 
tion, the plant, in its natural state with the conditions 
that surround it, is the material upon which he labors, 
and the fruit or flower that results from his efforts is 
the product. In education the teacher is the artist, a 
perfect human being the ideal, the child with its envi- 
ronment his raw material, and the child as it leaves his 
hands the finished product. What should be the char- 
acter of this product ? 

Of course, what the artist strives for is complete con- 
formity of product with ideal. This, however, is beyond 
his reach. 

" Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, 
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be." 

No painter ever succeeded in producing a painting as 
beautiful as his dream ; no sculptor, the statue of his 
imagination. In the consideration of the product of an 
art, then, we must take into account both the ideal 
product and the real product. First, then, what is the 
ideal product of education } 

If, as it has frequently been defined, education is the 
process of adjusting the individual to his environment, 
we may best conceive the ideal to be aimed at by an 
analysis of the environment into its various phases, 
and a determination of the respective individual qual- 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 69 

ities that perfect adjustment implies. As has already 
been suggested (see page 129), the environment presents 
eight well-defined phases. They are the physical, the 
intellectual, the industrial, the political, the social, the 
domestic, the esthetic, and the religious phase. Perfect 
adjustment to the physical phase of the environment 
implies health; to the intellectual, knowledge; to the 
industrial, productivity; to the political, public spirit; 
to the social, politeness ; to the domestic, domesticity ; 
to the esthetic, taste, and to the religious, righteousness. 
The ideal product of education, then, is healthy, intelli- 
gent, productive, pubHc-spirited, polite, domestic, taste- 
ful, and righteous. The actual product should approxi- 
mate this many-sidedness of virtue and interest. If we 
represent the ideal product by a circle drawn within the 
inclusive environment, the actual product might be 
indicated by an inscribed octagon. (See page 170.) 

If, then, by the title of this chapter, we should 
understand "the finished product" of education, we 
might say at once that there is no such thing, except 
in ideal. We mean, however, by finished product the 
product of common school education, the boy or the 
girl who, having finished the common school course, 
steps out into the broader experiences of practical life. 
What kind of boy or girl is it possible to produce ? 

Limiting ourselves, then, to the consideration of the 
finished product of the common school, we must first 
observe that, while there are such products, their 



lyo 



THE ART OF EDUCATION 



number is surprisingly small. Of the eighteen million 
children now enrolled in the schools of the United 
States, only twelve hundred thousand are in the second- 
ary schools; and of these little more than a hundred 
thousand will be graduated. Some time ago it was 
reported that of twenty-five thousand children entering 




the primary grades of Chicago only 28 per cent reached 
the grammar grade ; only 1 5 per cent entered high 
school ; and only 5 per cent were graduated. The fig- 
ures are probably not greatly different now. Of a hun- 
dred children entering the second grade in the cities of 
America perhaps not more than three or four complete 
the course. In Boston the percentage is 4; in Chicago, 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT I7I 

3 ; in St. Louis, 2. There is a steady falling away 
from start to finish. In the high schools of the country 
the percentage of enrollment of 1909-1910 in the first 
year was 42.09; in the second year 27.10; in the third 
18.18 ; and in the fourth 12.63. 

The inability of the common schools to hold the 
pupils until they have finished the course presents 
a serious educational question, which we shall not stop 
here to consider. A boy once amused himself, it is 
said, by building a mud man on the bank of a stream. 
Before his work was completed, he was called to 
dinner. During his absence some one came along 
and upset his mud man into the stream. When the 
boy returned, he looked for it in vain. A few days 
afterward his parents took him to a show. There he 
saw, among other curiosities, a peculiar-looking dwarf. 
The boy was greatly interested. So much so, indeed, that 
the dwarf finally turned upon him and asked, ** What's 
the matter with you.? Why are you following me 
about ? " The little boy looked up at him reproachfully, 
and said, " Why did you run away before I got you 
finished ? " This is a question that the teachers of 
the common schools might well ask themselves with 
respect to their own pupils. 

When a pupil does remain, however, for the finishing 
touches, and is given a high school diploma, what sort 
of product should he be ? The answer is : a boy or 
girl with such adjustment to the environment that the 



172 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

virtues ascribed to the ideal product shall be developed 
in him or her to the highest degree possible in the 
school period. An enumeration, with brief comment, 
of the powers and virtues that a product of the com- 
mon schools should possess is all that can be under- 
taken here. 

2. Health. — In the first place, then, the finished 
product of the common schools should manifest a 
high degree of health. Certainly every child who is 
sent forth from the schools has a right to expect 
to go out into the world with health unimpaired by 
the work of the school. Health is the basis of achieve- 
ment, and, to a certain degree, of happiness itself. The 
able man, as a rule, is the able-bodied man. There are 
exceptions, and physical vigor may have more to do 
with the quantity of achievement than with its quality ; 
but health is of so much importance as almost to justify 
the remark, "With health, everything; without health, 
nothing." Health, then, should be the primary consid- 
eration of the school. 

Now, recent investigations have proven conclusively 
that school work does sometimes injuriously affect the 
health. Investigations that have merely revealed a 
large number of school children who are physically 
defective are not the sort of investigations now in 
mind, although these are extremely significant. It 
is rather the kind of investigation made, for instance, 
in Cleveland some years ago, that bears especially 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 73 

upon the question before us. There it was found that, 
of the boys entering school, 85 per cent were in good 
health. In the school period the percentage sank 
to 45, and rose to 70 after its close. Of the girls, 
73 per cent were in good health on entering school. 
This percentage dropped to 17 in the school period, 
and later rose to 35. Seventy-five per cent of the girls 
in the high school were obliged to leave school, wholly 
or in part on account of ill health. The figures re- 
sulting from similar investigations elsewhere might 
be quoted, were it necessary to support the conclusion 
that the school does sometimes affect the health of 
the child injuriously. This is a serious reflection upon 
the school. What does learning amount to if the 
health is broken down .'' ** What shall it profit a child 
if it gain the whole world of knowledge and lose its 
health, or what shall it give in exchange for its 
health } " A child would better have no schooling 
at all if it is to make him an invalid. Parents are 
foolish who seek to cultivate in their children a hot- 
house intellectual precocity at the expense of their 
physical vigor. The teacher is unwise who requires 
or permits a child to sacrifice its health in the acquire- 
ment of knowledge. 

3. The Use of the Fundamentals. — The product of 
the common school should be so trained in the " funda- 
mentals " of education, the three R's, the rudiments of 
learning, that the use of them shall have become second 



174 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

nature. Reading, for instance, should be brought to 
the point at which it requires the expenditure of very 
little energy on the part of the higher nerve centers. 
The mind should be free to concentrate itself on the 
thought. There should be in the school much training 
in rapid reading. No one has really learned to read 
until he has learned the art of skipping. It is said 
of Gladstone that he read with extraordinary rapidity. 
He could glance through a book and extract from it 
what was of interest and value to him. Few books 
deserve to be read line by line. 

To acquire the art of reading, as it is here contem- 
plated, the child should read much. By the time the 
common school course is finished, he should be familiar 
with many of the great books of the world, and especially 
he should have had his imagination stimulated by the 
works of Scott, Dickens, Stevenson, and others whose 
books may be read by young people with interest, and 
with whom an acquaintance has come to be an element 
in the culture of mankind. Much reading may mean 
desultory reading, but this danger will be obviated by a 
skillful teacher. Children should be taught not only to 
read, but what to read and how to read. No books 
should be read but good books. There should be special 
preparation for the reading of a book, just as there 
should be special preparation for traveling in a foreign 
country. A book that is expected to instruct should be 
approached by questions that it is expected to answer; 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 75 

and every really good book should be read more than 
once. 

In writing, the object is legibility, always with due 
regard, of course, to rapidity and neatness. The pur- 
pose of writing is the transmission of thought, and writ- 
ing should be so legible that the rays of thought may 
penetrate it as the rays of the sun pass through a 
transparent object. That system of writing is the best 
which enables the pupil to write legibly with the great- 
est ease. It may not be the same for different pupils. 
It is of no great consequence whether the perpendicu- 
lar or slant method is used, providing the demands for 
ease, rapidity, and legibility are satisfied. Pupils some- 
times imagine, boys particularly, that the writing of an 
illegible hand is not altogether blameworthy. They 
have been told or have read of the poor writing of 
certain great men. The writing of Horace Greeley, for 
instance, was often illegible to those who were not fa- 
miliar with it. It is said that he once wrote a letter dis- 
missing a man from his employ, and denouncing him in 
the severest terms. The man took the letter, showed it 
to another man as a recommendation, and secured a job 
on the strength of it ! Ruf us Choate said of the writ- 
ing of Daniel Webster that when he wrote the word 
"would" it looked like a small gridiron struck by light- 
ning. But, while it is true that talented men are some- 
times poor penmen, erratic and illegible penmanship is 
no evidence of talent. 



176 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

As to the science of numbers, practical life requires 
that the fundamental operations be almost automatically 
performed. The ability to add, subtract, multiply, and 
divide with facility and rapidity, both in integers and 
fractions, should, therefore, belong to every graduate of 
the common school. The multiplication table should be 
thoroughly memorized ; if up to the number twenty, all 
the better. And, for the same reason, namely, the 
economy of time in the use of them, various arithmeti- 
cal processes, after they are thoroughly understood, 
should be committed to memory. There is no short cut 
in arithmetic that the child should not be encouraged 
to use when he once understands it. Percentage, for 
instance, is not really learned until the child can use, 
with a thorough understanding, the best methods em- 
ployed by expert accountants. Arithmetic is not merely 
for drill, but for use. 

The power to use the instruments of knowledge is, 
then, a necessary object of the schools. But while con- 
siderable time and attention must necessarily be devoted 
to the development of this power, it should not be for- 
gotten that it is not the sole aim of the school. It is 
a means, not an end. As some one has remarked, the 
three R's bear about the same relation to education as 
the knife, the fork, and the spoon bear to a good square 
meal. They are mere instruments, the skillful control 
of which is necessary to every product of the common 
school in the further education of himself. " Every 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 77 

man, who rises above the common level," says Gibbons, 
the historian, " has received two educations : the first 
from his teacher; the second, more personal and im- 
portant, from himself." 

4. The Desire for Knowledge. — The only thing that 
will move the product of the school to a constant use of 
the instruments of learning in the promotion of his own 
education is a desire for knowledge and self-improve- 
ment. Unless this is awakened, the work of the school 
is practically in vain. The desire for knowledge is even 
more important than knowledge itself. "The impor- 
tant thing," says Sir John Lubbock,^ "is not so much 
that every child should be taught, as that every child 
should be given the wish to learn. What does it matter 
if the pupil knows a little more or a little less ? A boy 
who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, 
will soon have forgotten almost all he ever learned; 
while another who has acquired a thirst for knowledge, 
even if he has learned little, will soon teach himself more 
than the first ever knew." An intense desire for knowl- 
edge is always a characteristic of the scholar. It was 
a desire for knowledge, and not the opportunity of a 
university education that made Herbert Spencer the 
greatest English-speaking philosopher ; that prostrated 
Abraham Lincoln before a fire of hickory bark and 
clapboards to read Shakespeare, the Pilgrim's Progress, 
and the Bible ; that lifted Hugh Miller from the stone 

1 " The Pleasures of Life," Chap. IX. 
N 



178 THE ART or EDUCATION 

quarry to the highest eminence in geology ; that made 
Elihu Burrit the learned blacksmith ; that carried Gar- 
field from the towpath to the White House. And it is 
the desire for knowledge, that, if developed in the 
mind of a child before it leaves the common school, 
will push it on to new acquisitions and attainments, and 
make its life a constant effort after self-improvement. 

5. Useful Knowledge. — The best method of develop- 
ing the desire for knowledge is to feed the mind with 
knowledge that is useful. The mere exercise of the 
intellectual faculties gives pleasure, but this pleasure 
may be experienced in acquiring knowledge that is useful 
as well as through mere intellectual gymnastics. The 
course of study of the common school should, therefore, 
consist in such studies as will bring the mind in contact 
with information that is likely to be most useful in the 
exigencies and affairs of life. Just what knowledge is 
of most worth is a difficult problem, but it ought to be 
easy to see that literature, when properly studied, is a 
better means of culture than the parsing of infinitives 
and participles ; that the practical processes of mathe- 
matics should be emphasized more than the extracts of 
roots ; that the history of one's country should take pre- 
cedence over the history of the Jews ; that the study of 
science is likely to prove to be of more value in life than 
a knowledge of Greek philosophy ; that the ideas, activ- 
ities, and habits of living men are as worthy an object of 
study as the former religious speculations and ceremo- 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 79 

nials of the Egyptian dead. Men are of more conse- 
quence than mummies, and a dead language is not a 
worthier object of study merely because it is dead. 

There is an idea more or less prevalent, even amongst 
those who ought to know better, that it does not matter 
what a child learns so long as he is learning ; that disci- 
pline is the main thing. But discipHne is none the less 
valuable if acquired while striving for useful knowledge. 
There should be, in the arrangement of the common 
school curriculum, the most careful discrimination as to 
the various studies with respect to their relation to pos- 
sible use, and that which promises little utility should be 
carefully pruned out. This is true, not only with respect 
to the course pursued in the common schools, but also 
with respect to the courses of colleges and universities. 
The ideal of scholarship should be the possession of a vast 
amount of. useful knowledgQ, not merely the exclusive pos- 
session of knowledge. A painstaking and laborious inves- 
tigation of the trivial and commonplace maybe scientific, 
but such an investigation deserves commendation all the 
more if it is directed with some thought of practical re- 
sults. A German is said to have remarked in an after- 
dinner speech, after explaining that he was a professor 
of pure mathematics, that he thanked the Lord that he 
cultivated a science that had never been degraded to any 
practical purposes ! This is probably an extravagance, 
but it does illustrate the disposition of some to divorce 
knowledge from utility. 



l8o THE ART OF EDUCATION 

We would not be misunderstood in what has just been 
said. Certain studies in the common schools, and certain 
investigations in colleges and universities, that may, at 
first sight, seem to promise little practical usefulness, 
may turn out to be of the highest consequence. Says 
Pearson : " It is impossible to say of any result of pure 
science that it will not some day be the starting point of 
wide-reaching technical applications. The frogs' legs of 
Galvani and the Atlantic cable seem wide enough apart, 
but the former was the starting point of the series of 
investigations that ended in the latter. The recent 
discovery of Hertz that the action of electromagnetism 
is propagated in waves like light — • his confirmation of 
Maxwell's theory that light is only a special phase of 
electromagnetic action — seems at first to have no 
practical application, but it has led to wireless teleg- 
raphy."^ "Every particular class of inquirers," says 
Spencer, " has, as it were, secreted its own particular 
order of truths from the general mass of material which 
observation accumulates ; and all other classes of 
inquirers have made use of these truths as fast as they 
were elaborated, with the effect of enabling them the 
better to elaborate each its own order of truths. It was 
thus with the application of Huyghens's optical dis- 
covery to astronomical observation by Galileo. It was 
thus with the application of the isochronism of the 
pendulum to the making of instruments for measuring 

^ Pearson, " Grammar of Science," pp. 29-30. 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT l8l 

intervals, astronomical and other. It was thus when the 
discovery that the refraction and dispersion of light did 
not follow the same law of variation affected both 
astronomy and physiology by giving us achromatic 
telescopes and microscopes. It was thus when Bradley's 
discovery of the aberration of light enabled him to make 
the first step toward ascertaining the motions of the 
stars. It was thus when Cavendish's torsion-balance 
experiment determined the specific gravities of the sun 
and the planets. It was thus when tables of atmospheric 
refraction enabled observers to write down the real 
places of the heavenly bodies instead of their apparent 
places. It was thus when the discovery of the different 
expansibilities of metals by heat gave us the means of 
correcting our chronometrical measurements of astro- 
nomical periods. It was thus when the lines of the pris- 
matic spectrum were used to distinguish the heavenly 
bodies which are of like nature with the sun from those 
which are not. It was thus when, as recently, an elec- 
tro-telegraphic instrument was invented for the more 
accurate registration of meridional transits. It was thus 
when the difference in the rates of a clock at the equator, 
and nearer the poles, gave data for calculating the 
oblateness of the earth, and accounting for the preces- 
sion of the equinoxes." 1 All this is true enough. But 
the fact that the discoveries of science, pursued without 
regard to practical use, have been applied in unexpected 

1 Spencer, "The Genesis of Science." Humboldt Edition, p. 14. 



l82 TEIE ART OF EDUCATION 

directions is no sufficient reason why even scientific 
investigation should be undertaken without some con- 
sideration of probable utility. Such unforeseen applica- 
tions merely show that knowledge of any kind may 
prove to be useful, — a fact that no one denies. 

And so, with respect to the school curriculum, it 
should be constructed with the conscious design of 
supplying the probable intellectual and practical needs 
of the pupil ; and the product of the common school 
should have stored in his mind a large amount of useful 
information. 

6. The Power to Think. — Information, however, is 

of little value unless accompanied by the power to 

think. Thought is necessary to transmute knowledge 

into wisdom. A man may be a walking encyclopedia 

and still be a fool, a — 

" bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, 
With loads of learned lumber in his head." 

Thinking, however, is a difficult process. It requires 
the expenditure of much energy. '' What is the hardest 
task in the world ? " inquires Emerson, and he answers, 
" To think." It is so difficult that few people seem 
willing to undertake it. Not one person in a hundred 
ever sits down to think deeply and connectedly, with- 
out being forced to do so by circumstances. And when 
thus compelled, the effort, from want of previous prac- 
tice, is likely to result in little more than mental worry 
and confusion. 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 83 

Thinking is accompanied also by dangers. A new 
thought let fall in the world oftentimes produces as 
much commotion as an explosion of dynamite or the 
convulsion of the earth's crust. '* Beware," says Emer- 
son, " when the great God lets loose a thinker on this 
planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a 
conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no 
man knows what is safe, or where it will end. There is 
not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to- 
morrow ; there is not any literary reputation, not the 
so-called eternal names of fame, that may not be revised 
and condemned. The very hopes of man, the thoughts 
of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and 
morals of mankind, are all at the mercy of a new gener- 
alization." 1 The patriots of Concord — 

" Fired the shot heard round the world " ; 

the thoughts of the man who wrote that line will rever- 
berate throughout the world forever. 

But thought invades the intellectual peace and com- 
placency of men. When it does so the thinker is 
unwelcome. He is made to suffer, as are other dis- 
turbers of the peace. A Tolstoi is patronized or ridi- 
culed ; a Darwin, excoriated ; a Galileo, humiliated and 
compelled to recant ; a Socrates, poisoned, and a 
Saviour crucified. Hence few have dared to think. 
'* In the whole period from the sixth to the tenth 

1 Emerson, " Complete Works," Concord Edition, Vol. II, pp. 308- 
309. 



184 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

centuries," says Buckle, '* there were not in all Europe 
more than three or four men who dared to think for 
themselves." Persecution to-day is not so effective, 
but the proportion of thinkers is small. Men slay (or 
flay) the prophets. This is not because there is hos- 
tility to truth as such any more than there is to error ; 
it is because truth is the light in which the weakness, 
folly, and wickedness of men are exposed, and they 
resent exposure. 

Thought is, also, in a very real sense, dangerous 
to the thinker himself. It makes his certainties un- 
certain. He finds himself adrift when he had supposed 
he was anchored. He begins to doubt cherished dog- 
mas, and doubt is supposed by many to be a sin. It 
would be truer, however, to attach the idea of a state 
of sin to intellectual contentment and quiescence. 
Without doubt there is no thought. Doubt is the 
dynamic of thought. It is to thought what steam is 
to the engine. 

"You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. 

I know not : one indeed I knew 

In many a subtle question versed, 

Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first, 
But ever strove to make it true : 

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 

At last he beat his music out. 

There lives more faith in honest doubt. 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 8$ 

He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
He would not make his judgment blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind 
And laid them : thus he came at length 
To find a stronger faith his own/' 
The road to an abiding and quickening faith passes 
through the valley of doubt. 

" Perhaps the deeper faith that is to come 
Will see God rather in the strenuous doubt 
Than in the creed held as an infant's hand 
Holds purposeless whatso is placed therein." 

*' It can scarcely be questioned that when the truth or 
falsehood of an event or observation may have impor- 
tant bearings on conduct, over-doubt is more socially 
valuable than over-creduHty. In an age like our own, 
which is essentially an age of scientific inquiry, the preva- 
lence of doubt and criticism ought not to be regarded 
with despair or as a sign of decadence. It is one of the 
safeguards of progress . . . honest doubt is far healthier 
for the community, is more social, than unthinking in- 
ference, Hght-hearted and over-ready beUef. Doubt is 
at least the first stage toward scientific inquiry ; and it 
is better by far to have reached that stage than to have 
made no intellectual progress whatever." ^ 

But no matter how dangerous thinking may be, indi- 
vidually or socially, it is necessary. Upon it depends 
individual and social salvation. It is the only possi- 
ble method of arriving at the truth, and the truth alone 

1 Karl Pearson, " The Grammar of Science," pp. 66-69. 



1 86 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

can make us free. What the world needs to-day, as 
much as anything else, if not more, is that people think 
for themselves. There are too many who take their 
politics and religion from their ancestors, who act by 
rule of thumb, whose conversation is an echo of the pul- 
pit, the press, or the last book they have read. They 
believe what they see in print, and to them the library 
is the only source of knowledge. '* Meek young men," 
says Emerson, " grow up in libraries, believing it their 
duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, 
which Bacon, have given ; forgetting that Cicero, Locke, 
and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they 
wrote these books." ^ 

The power to think, then, should be consciously en- 
couraged in the schools. If it is not, it is not likely to 
be developed elsewhere, except by the force of circum- 
stances. Every lesson that is given should be consciously 
a thought lesson, and every effort to think should 
be rewarded by approval. There is a story to the effect 
that a child was asked by his teacher what he was doing. 
The child replied that he was thinking. " Stop it," said 
the teacher ; '' this is no place to think ! " 

Teachers and parents should be careful not to dis- 
courage in the children the habit of thinking. Children 
are sometimes reproved or rebuked by their elders for 
absent-mindedness. All thinkers are necessarily absent- 
minded with respect to matters other than those upon 

1 Emerson's " Complete Works," Concord Edition, Vol. I, p. 89. 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 87 

which their thought is concentrated. It has been said 
of Gladstone that in some respects he did not seem to be 
a great man, but in the power to concentrate his mind 
upon the subject in hand to the exclusion of all others 
he was the greatest man in the British Empire. We 
laugh when we read that in the attempt to time the 
boiling of an Qgg, Watt put his watch in the water and 
held the Qgg in his hand ; or when we are told that Sir 
Isaac Newton sat by the fire until he burned his shins, 
and then reproved his valet for not removing the fire! 
It is said of Sir Walter Scott that, being fond of pets, 
he wished to allow his cat to come into his study. So 
he cut a hole in the door to give it entrance. Then it 
occurred to him that the kittens should have the same 
privilege, so he cut a little hole by the side of the big 
hole to allow the kittens to come in. Similar stories are 
told of other great men. Socrates is said to have stood 
in one place for twenty-four hours thinking of a philo- 
sophical problem, while a battle was going on. It has 
been irreverently suggested that he was so badly scared 
that he was unable to run. It is said also of Descartes 
that he walked into the midst of a hostile army while he 
was absorbed in thought. There is a well-known story 
that Archimedes solved a problem while in his bath, 
and jumping out ran down the street crying '' Eureka ! 
Eureka ! " altogether forgetting the proprieties of the 
occasion. When Syracuse was besieged and in flames, 
soldiers rushed into the house of Archimedes and found 



1 88 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

him deeply absorbed in a mathematical problem. All 
unconscious of danger, he cried out, " Don't disturb my 
circles," and fell, pierced by the sword of a soldier. 
Hegel, the great German philosopher, finished his pro- 
foundest book, TJie Phenomenology of Spirit, while the 
battle of Jena raged around him. Similar stories are 
told of other absent-minded philosophers. 

It must not be supposed, however, because philoso- 
phers are absent-minded, that absent-mindedness in chil- 
dren should evoke rebuke and ridicule. There can 
be no hard thinking without more or less abstraction. 
Training children to think is not necessarily encourag- 
ing them to be visionary and impractical. Quite the 
contrary. The ability to think is a necessary equipment 
for life. Thinking, as has been shown, is the secret of the 
memory and also of the will. How often does one say 
after doing wrong or making a mistake, " I didn't think " ! 
Let the child be so trained to think that when it is 
tempted to do wrong, it will stop and reflect that to yield 
means to become a liar, a hypocrite, or a thief. Let 
him be so trained that when he is confronted, as he will 
be in later life, by scientific and antiscientific theories 
and dogmas he will have the power and the disposition 
to examine them critically before accepting them or 
rejecting them. 

By the time the pupil has finished the work of the 
common schools, he should have acquired the scientific 
attitude and habit of mind, and should have developed. 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 89 

to the fullest extent possible in the school period, the 
power to think. 

7. The Power of Expression. — Thought is of no social 
value until it is expressed. Along with the develop- 
ment of the power to think there should also be de- 
veloped both the power and the inclination to express 
thought. Scott says of one of his characters in "St. 
Ronan's Well " that *' He forgot amid the luxury of deep 
and dark investigations, that society has its claims ; and 
that the knowledge that is unimparted is necessarily 
a barren talent, and is lost to society, like the miser's 
concealed hoard by the death of its proprietor." 

But it is not because the thought of the average per- 
son is likely to be of great value to society that the power 
to express it is a desirable possession. Training in the 
art of expression should receive attention because ex- 
pression is so large a part of life. All the arts of 
expression cannot find a place in the common schools. 
Butthere is one to which it should give constant attention, 
and that is the art of expressing thought in the mother 
tongue. Every hour in the day men and women in 
ordinary life are called upon to use their native language. 
They should be taught in the schools to use it artistically. 
It is sometimes said that if a child only knows a thing 
he can tell it,^ and the impHcation is that attention need 

1 This opinion has the sanction of high authority. Montaigne says : 
" Let but our pupil be well furnished with things, words will follow 
too fast; he will pull them after him, if they do not come voluntarily. . . . 



1 90 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

be given only to the inculcation or development of ideas; 
but this is a mistake. It may be true that if a child 
knows a thing he can tell it; but the question is; can 
he tell it artistically ? that is, in clear and concise lan- 
guage without unnecessary verbiage ? What a wonder- 
ful art it is ! How skillfully it is employed by the 
orator and the poet ! Often in reading a book we say, 
" That is exactly what I think, only I could not express 
it in that way." ^ As Pope said : — 

" True Wit is nature to advantage dress'd, 
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd." 

How many in the endeavor to express their thoughts are 

For my part I hold, and Socrates is positive in it, that whoever has in his 
mind a vivid and clear idea, will express it well enough in one way or 
other; and if he be dumb, by signs. 

'When once a thing conceiv'd is in the wit, 
Words soon present themselves to utter it.' " 

It is probably true that a vivid and clear idea will find expression " in one 
way or other." But expression is an art. Consequently the aim should 
be artistic expression. The teacher ought not to be satisfied with " one 
way or other." There is a best form of expression, and that should be 
the constant aim. Conjugal love, for instance, has been expressed by 
millions of men; but how feeble is the ordinary expression in comparison 
with that of Shakespeare, as he puts it into the mouth of Brutus — 

" You are my true and honorable wife ; 
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
That visit my sad heart." 

1 " Usually it seems to the recipient of a truly artistic impression," says 
Tolstoi, " that he knew the thing before, but had been unable to express 
it." — What is Art^ p. 102. 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT IQI 

obliged to resort to slang, sometimes to profanity ! The 
use of slang and profanity is a confession of poverty of 
language, the inability to express one's self in appropriate 
words. Boys, when led to see that this is true, will be 
restrained from profanity, not only because it is vulgar and 
wicked, but also because it is an acknowledgment of 
lack of power. Most boys, and men, too, would rather 
be thought wicked than weak. 

The importance, then, of developing in the schools 
the power to express thought in beautiful and appropri- 
ate language can hardly be overestimated. Every 
recitation should be a lesson in expression. There 
should be frequent exercises requiring written composi- 
tion. No sHpshod forms or methods of expression 
should be tolerated in writing or in speech. If sufficient 
attention is given to the matter, the product of even the 
common school will be able to express himself clearly in 
the mother tongue. 

8. Power and Inclination to Work. — Another quality 
that the product of the common schools should mani- 
fest is the proper attitude toward productive labor, and 
some ability to perform it. The separation of the whole 
school life from the thought of work and the opportunity 
to engage in it has long been one of the most serious 
defects of American education. If we were entirely 
successful in keeping children in school until they finish 
the course, they would by that time, in all probability, as 
the schools are now conducted, be not only without skill 



192 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

in labor, but without the disposition to enter upon it. 
The movement now in progress toward the introduction 
of vocational training is doing something toward cor- 
recting this fundamental school defect ; but to put the 
common schools on the proper basis with respect to 
labor will require nothing less than an educational revolu- 
tion. 

The fact is that the aristocratic idea with respect to 
work still has wide prevalence. It is still almost gen- 
erally supposed that it is more dignified and honorable 
to live without labor, or to practice some exploiting oc- 
cupation, than it is to earn a living by productive labor. 
The contrary is, of course, the case. The only dignified 
and honorable life is that of those who respond to the 
requirements of both nature and society and produce by 
labor the goods that they consume, or render adequate 
service to society in return for such goods. 

Life in any complete sense is impossible without 
work. Idleness depresses the mind and leads to enmiiy 
which is painful. Men who think it is a disgrace to 
work try to relieve themselves of the discomforts of in- 
dolence by indulging in sports and games, and thus 
secure the bodily activity necessary to physical health. 
But work is better than sports and games to tone up the 
body and mind. Even those whose lives are chiefly 
employed in intellectual work should devote some part 
of the day to labor that involves muscular exercise. 
Ruskin and Tolstoi were right in insisting that every 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 193 

man should engage for a part of each day in some form 
of manual labor. "There is virtue yet," says Emerson, 
''in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as un- 
learned hands." Such work tends to keep one in health. 
It is mentally and morally invigorating. 

Labor, then, is essential to life. No one can attain 
his highest development without it. This of itself 
would be a sufficient reason why the schools should in- 
culcate a respect for labor, and aim at the development 
of productive skill. There is another reason quite as 
strong. Society must have means of sustenance and 
means of culture. These can be supplied only by labor. 
He who does not live by his own labor must live by the 
labor of somebody else. To live by the labor of others 
is to be a parasite. Self-respect, then, and the happi- 
ness that comes from the consciousness of the good 
will of others, are only possible, in the highest sense, to 
those who are performing their share of the necessary 
work of the world. And no part of such work is un- 
dignified or ignoble. 

The school, then, should not be merely a place to 
study, but also a place to work. Learning and labor 
should go hand in hand. No school is properly equipped 
for education in a democratic community without a gar- 
den and a shop. In the garden and the shop pupils 
should acquire some knowledge of and skill in productive 
labor. Their intellectual tasks should, to a large extent, 
grow out of and center about their labor and the labor 



194 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

that has been exerted in the life of the race. Especially 
should the school inculcate upon the minds of children 
correct ideas with respect to the relation of labor to 
the happiness of mankind. It is a reflection upon the 
schools if those who come forth from them entertain the 
idea that any form of labor necessary to the well-being 
of man is ignoble or disgraceful, or if they are disposed 
to look down upon those who spend their lives in pro- 
ductive toil. The school should inculcate respect for 
labor and an interest in it, to the end that the graduate 
of the common schools may entertain correct ideas with 
regard to labor and may have developed the disposition 
to earn his living by some form of useful work. 

9. Public Spirit. — It is generally recognized that it 
is a proper function of the common schools to inculcate 
the virtue of patriotism. Patriotism is usually defined 
as a love of country. With most pupils it is associated 
with the flag, and the army and navy. But when 
properly understood, patriotism is only an extension to 
the nation of the feeling of interest in the welfare of 
home, family, and community which a good man and 
citizen should manifest. One may not be truly a patriot 
and yet be indifferent to the well-being of the city or vil- 
lage in which one lives. Patriotism, like charity, should 
begin at home. As it is ordinarily inculcated in the 
schools, it begins with the nation, and apparently ends 
there. Otherwise could there be so little public interest 
in matters pertaining to local affairs ? The population 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 95 

of our country is nationally patriotic, but the spirit of 
community and civic patriotism is comparatively rare. 
Patriotism and public spirit are one. The true patriot 
is interested in all that is necessary to the well-being 
of the community, town, or city in which he lives, as 
well as in matters pertaining to the national government. 

PubHc spirit, then, instead of patriotism as ordinarily 
understood, should be the object of the school. The 
relations that must necessarily exist between private 
action and public welfare should be clearly shown, and 
the pupils should be led to resent, as they would a 
personal injury, any action that injures the public and 
prevents the progress and well-being of the community 
in which they live. 

10. The Social Graces. — Inasmuch as no man liveth 
unto himself, the child should be systematically taught, as 
early as possible, how to deport himself in the presence 
of others. The sooner he learns the ordinary social graces 
and amenities, the sooner these become second nature to 
him, the easier will be his course through life, and the 
more probable his success. " Manners make the man." 

The estabHshed etiquette of society is not a system of 
arbitrary conventions that may with equal convenience 
be observed or disregarded. It includes such forms of 
behavior as have been found to be necessary to the 
proper conduct of social life. " Etiquette, with all its 
littlenesses and niceties," it has been said, " is founded 
upon a central idea of right and wrong." 



196 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

Now the school, by its very nature, offers an excellent 
opportunity for the cultivation of the social graces. 
Children of all classes and conditions are brought there 
into intimate social relations. The school is, socially, 
society in miniature. What better opportunity could be 
desired to teach the usages and proprieties of social life .-* 

And what could be more practical than to teach children 
the recognized usages and customs of social occasions .'' 
It is the want of such knowledge that leads to much 
embarrassment and shame. Of how much pain and 
discomfort in after life a boy would be relieved if he 
were taught in the schools how to enter a room, how to 
leave it, and the proper forms of an introduction ! His 
love-making will perhaps have to be left to take care of 
itself, but even here he could be saved a great deal of an 
intense sort of mental discomfort if the formalities even 
of that were learned before he loses his head. 

Again, what could be more profitable to pupils in the 
rural districts, all of whom, perhaps, will afterwards visit 
the city, than to be given some instructions in school 
with regard to the social customs and practices of city 
life .'' Why should they be left to find out these things 
by painful experience ? To be a greenhorn in the city 
affords amusement for others, but it is anything but 
satisfactory to the one chiefly concerned. 

In many ways, with a little conscious attention, social 
friction could be diminished, and the path of life be 
smoothed, by an endeavor on the part of the school to 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 97 

prepare a product of which, socially speaking, the rough 
corners are knocked off and which would be, to a certain 
extent, polished. 

II. Family Duties. — In the ordinary course of af- 
fairs, the boy who comes forth from the common school 
will be a husband, a father, and the head of a family ; 
the girl, a wife, a mother, and a housekeeper. Is there 
any reason why, in the effort to educate boys and girls, 
the duties consequent upon the future family life should 
be entirely neglected .'' Great emphasis is now laid, 
none too much, upon vocational training. But here are 
vocations upon which practically all will enter. Some- 
times it is difficult to determine what a child is indus- 
trially to become ; and consequently the kind of industrial 
training that he especially needs. But domestic sci- 
ence, the household arts, and household economy are 
subjects which will be of practical benefit to all. " Con- 
sider the fact from any but the conventional point of 
view," says Spencer, "and it will seem strange that, 
while the raising of first-rate bullocks is an occupation 
on which men of education willingly bestow much time, 
inquiry, and thought, the bringing up of fine human 
beings is an occupation tacitly voted unworthy of their 
attention. Mammas who have been taught little but 
languages, music, and accomplishments, aided by nurses 
full of antiquated prejudices, are held competent regu- 
lators of the food, clothing, and exercise of children. 
Meanwhile the fathers read books and periodicals, attend 



198 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

agricultural meetings, try experiments, and engage in 
discussions, all with the view of discovering how to fatten 
prize pigs ! Infinite pains will be taken to produce a 
racer that shall win the Derby, none to produce a modern 
athlete. Had Gulliver narrated of the Laputans that 
the men vied with each other in learning how best to 
rear the offspring of other creatures, and were careless 
of learning how best to rear their own offspring, he 
would have paralleled any of the other absurdities he 
ascribes to them." ^ 

Of course, the more delicate questions implied by 
domestic life can never become matters of school in- 
struction. But the sciences and arts pertaining immedi- 
ately to home life may well be taught. The penalty 
that society pays for ignorance in regard to the nour- 
ishment and care of children is an enormous death rate 
of the very young. Some instruction in this direction 
might well be given to both boys and girls — boys as 
well as girls, for if there are sound reasons for teaching 
boys how to raise hogs and cattle, there are even stronger 
reasons why they should be led to devote some atten- 
tion to the care and culture of children. 

The chief aim of the schools with respect to the 
family Hfe should be to attach the mind of both boys 
and girls to the duties and simple joys of the home life — 
that is, to making them intelligently domestic. 

1 " Education : Intellectual, Moral, and Physical," Humboldt Edition, 
P- 305- 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 1 99 

12. Love of the Beautiful. — No person is really edu- 
cated who has not developed the power to appreciate 
the beautiful in nature, who does not admire the beauty 
of a sunrise or sunset, who is not affected by the sub- 
limity of a storm, the grandeur of the woods and moun- 
tains, who does not feel his heart leap up when he 
beholds a rainbow in the sky. The world is full of 
beauty to those who have eyes to see. No better serv- 
ice can be rendered a child than to open his eyes to 
beautiful scenes and his ears to the harmony of music. 
What an inexhaustible source of pleasure are the sights 
and sounds of nature to him who has the power to ap- 
preciate them ! The contemplation of a rainbow, a sun- 
set, a flower, a tree, a landscape may lift his soul above 
the sordid affairs of life and strengthen him for its ar- 
duous duties. 

What has just been said with regard to nature applies 
also to art. There should be a most careful attention to 
the development of an interest in painting, poetry, sculp- 
ture, and music. It may not be possible to develop 
skill in all these arts. The common school has no 
time for that, but by a little attention it may develop 
an appreciation of art which will add wonderfully to 
the enjoyment of life. The appreciation of the beauti- 
ful should be a common possession. It should be the 
solace of our leisure hours. 

The general development of an esthetic interest would 
go far to solve some of our most difficult social and in- 



200 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

dustrial questions ; the labor problem, for instance. 
This problem in one of its aspects is a problem of 
leisure. Sometimes it is argued that the laborer must 
not be given a half holiday, must not have shorter 
hours of work, because he will waste his time, means, 
and energy in the various forms of dissipation ; he 
would better be at work. This is more or less of a 
reflection upon the schools, which must assume their 
share of the responsibility for the failure to develop in 
the laboring class a wider range of interests. If our 
laboring classes were properly educated, I mean that if 
in their schooling proper attention were given to the 
development of an interest in nature and in art, they 
would take advantage of any leisure they might obtain 
to find innocent sources of enjoyment in museums, in 
libraries, in the fields, and in the woods. 

A love of the beautiful, then, is a proper object of 
school education, and no pupil should leave the common 
schools without it. 

13. Righteousness. — Finally, and briefly, the reli- 
gious element in the nature of man should receive 
proper recognition in the schools. Not that the schools 
should be employed to promote the interests of any 
sect. Religion is nonsectarian. Religion is the desire 
to be in right relations with the great Power manifest- 
ing itself in the universe. This desire leads to right 
conduct. Right conduct, that is, righteousness on the 
part of the individual, is essential to the well-being and 



THE FINISHED PRODUCT 20I 

life of society. " Righteousness exalteth a nation." 
Society, therefore, which estabUshes the school, should 
insist that some conscious attempt should be made to 
make the products of the common schools boys and 
girls disposed to be righteous. 

14. Conclusion. — If the reader will now glance back- 
ward over this rather long discussion of the finished 
product of the public schools, he will see that the quali- 
ties which it is insisted that such a product should 
manifest are all included in the following : health, in- 
telligence, industry, public spirit, politeness, domes- 
ticity, taste, and righteousness. All these are neces- 
sary to an all-round development. They represent the 
" many-sided interest " of the Herbartians. They are 
the necessary results of the adjustment of the child to 
the various phases of his environment. All that has 
been insisted upon here is that the common school 
should carry this process of adjustment as far as is pos- 
sible in the school period. With these various qualities 
at least initiated, and with the self-confidence to which 
their possession should naturally give rise, the process 
of education will be continued by the pupil himself, and 
if so, he cannot fail to be a useful citizen, nor can the 
school fail to be justified by its work. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE ULTIMATE END OF EDUCATION 

The great object of Education should be commensurate with the object 
of life. — Emerson. 

No school can avoid taking for the ultimate moral aim a desirable state 
of feeling called by whatever name — gratification, enjoyment, happiness. 
— Spencer. 

I. The End of Life. — The end of life is happiness. 
This has been denied, and much subtle reasoning has 
been employed to prove that virtue, or holiness, or per- 
fection, or self-realization, or something besides happi- 
ness is the ultimate end of our existence. But why- 
should we be virtuous or holy, or strive for perfection 
or self-realization, if these ends do not contribute to the 
sum of agreeable states of feeling embraced in the word 
" happiness ' ' ? Some speak of the sweet uses of adversity, 
the discipline of sorrow, and the moral benefits of suffer- 
ing, as if human beings were put into the world not to 
enjoy, but to suffer, not to be glad, but to be sad. There 
is indeed a great deal of pain in the world, and no doubt 
it has its purpose. Undoubtedly both man and his en- 
vironment are imperfect, and double imperfection brings 
much pain and misery. But pain is always and every- 
where an evidence of maladjustment. Where pain is, 
something is wrong. In the ideal society, of which poets 

202 



THE ULTIMATE END OF EDUCATION 203 

sing and prophets dream, there is to be nothing but joy 
and gladness. *' God shall wipe away all tears, and 
there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, 
neither shall there be any more pain " ; for all these 
things shall have passed away. Paradoxical as it may 
seem, the function of pain is to promote happiness. 

2. The Will to Live. — Happiness maybe defined as a 
result or a concomitant of the due and proper exercise 
and appreciation of all the faculties and powers of the 
individual. That is to say, it may be identified with life 
itself, in the broadest acceptation of that term. The 
desire for happiness is the will to Hve. 

All sentient beings crave life, the human being per- 
haps most of all. Man may want but little here below, 
but it is evident that he wants to live. He struggles, 
he sacrifices to preserve his life ; he puts forth almost 
superhuman efforts to prolong it when sometimes to an 
onlooker it seems to be of little worth. We question the 
sincerity of those who say that they are "tired of life." 
It is the limitations imposed by unfavorable conditions 
that are irksome. These drive to despair and to suicide. 
But life itself is sweet. " All my possessions," said the 
dying Elizabeth of England, "for a moment of time." 
Life is the highest good. The will to live is the main- 
spring of progress. 

3. The Time Element in Life. — Life implies both a 
quantitative and a qualitative element. The quantitative 
element is time, mere length of days. Time is the 



204 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

measure of opportunity. We habitually underestimate its 
value. Lowell, in one of his best poems, seems to assert 
that a critical moment comes to every man and nation, 
and that it comes but once. But rightly perceived every 
moment is critical. It gives opportunity for choice, and 
eternity, as Balzac remarks, hangs on the slightest of our 
decisions. " Choose well," says Goethe ; '' your choice is 
brief and yet endless." Every hour of Hfe, then, like a 
jewel dropped from the hand of the Almighty into the 
lap of Time, is studded with diamonds of opportunity. 

If this fact were truly appreciated, we should regard 
the loss of time as, what it really is, a loss of life, and 
employ all available means of adding an increment, how- 
ever slight, to the average longevity. Time lost is indeed 
irrevocable. Not even the arm of Omnipotence is 
powerful enough to turn back the hands on the clock of 
Time. " This passing moment is an edifice which the 
Omnipotent cannot rebuild." The fleeting hours may 
be likened to a procession of ships, which, having weighed 
anchor and turned their prows seaward, sail in endless 
line over the wide ocean. Moored by the shore is the 
present hour, but it too will soon have slipped its cable, 
and, whether laden with generous thoughts and noble 
deeds, or the debris and ashes of frivolity and vice, will, 
like the others, go drifting out over the bosom of the 
boundless sea of Time, where " no eye has ever detected 
the gleam of a returning sail." Was not Dryden correct 
when he wrote, *' This hour's the very crisis of your fate " .'' 



THE ULTIMATE END OF EDUCATION 205 

If such supreme importance really attaches to the 
present hour, what shall we say of life viewed merely as 
a succession of hours ? It is the only life of which we 
can be absolutely sure. We may hold with Plato to the 
doctrine of metempsychosis or the transmigration of souls, 
or with the Theosophist to the doctrine of preexistence 
and incarnation, and say with Wordsworth, that 

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
The soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And Cometh from afar," 

but the basis of all such beliefs is as yet only the inti- 
mations that present themselves to the poetic mind. We 
may, indeed, cherish the hope of a future immortality, 
and anchor upon it as the foundation of our faith, but 
the old, old question will recur, " If a man die, shall he 
live again ? " There is truth in that view of life expressed 
by the great Agnostic : " Life is a narrow vale between 
the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive 
in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and 
the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From 
the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no 
word." And though we rejoice that " in the night of 
death Hope sees a star, and listening Love hears the 
rustle of a wing," we hesitate to say, " I know " ; we 
only " hope " and " believe." " Knowledge is of things 
we see." 

But even if a life beyond the grave were a demon- 



206 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

strated fact, it would not take away any of the impor- 
tance or value of the present life. It would still be true 
that the most important period in human existence is 
the life that now is. Education should therefore exalt 
this life, and be directed to such care of the body and 
such habits of life as will increase the average longevity. 
Length of days is an element in the ultimate end of 
education. 

4. The Qualitative Element. — But " How to live ? 
— that," as Spencer declares, " is the essential ques- 
tion for us. Not how to live in the mere material sense 
only, but in the widest sense. The general problem 
which comprehends every special problem is — the right 
ruling of conduct in all directions under all circumstances. 
In what way to treat the body ; in what way to treat the 
mind ; in what way to manage our affairs ; in what way 
to bring up a family ; in what way to behave as a citi- 
zen ; in what way to utiUze all those sources of happi- 
ness which nature supplies, — how to use all our faculties 
to the greatest advantage of ourselves and others, — how 
to live completely ? And this being the great thing need- 
ful for us to learn, is by consequence the great thing 
which education has to teach. To prepare us for com- 
plete living is the function education has to discharge." 

Complete living we have accepted as the ultimate 
educational aim, since it is equivalent to happiness. But 
what is it " to live completely " ? We can answer this 
question only by analyzing the conditions of happiness. 



THE ULTIMATE END OF EDUCATION 207 

We have seen that a long life is one of them, since it 
affects the totality of happiness. But obviously there 
are many more. " To live," said Rousseau, '' is not merely 
to breathe, it is to act. It is to make use of our organs, 
of our senses, of our faculties, of all the powers which 
bear witness to us of our existence. He who has lived most 
is not he who has numbered the most years, but he who 
has been truly conscious of what life is." What, then, 
in addition to length of days, are the factors essential to 
complete living or happiness ? They will include at 
least the following — health, work, leisure, appreciation 
of the beautiful, wealth, friendship, love, and the peace 
of mind that comes from the possession of a conscience 
void of offense. 

The necessity of health as a condition of happiness 
must be obvious to all. No one can be really happy 
when he is sick. The influence of the health upon the 
general condition is well illustrated in the case of the 
dyspeptic. " 111 " is a word that is applied both to a 
bodily and a mental condition. The first condition 
to happiness is health and vigor. This implies the 
satisfaction of all the reasonable physical wants. 

The second condition is work. By work I do not 
mean drudgery, but the doing of what one likes to do, 
with a definite and useful purpose. That is work, and 
it is also " art." The pleasure of the artist is impos- 
sible without work, and without it the full measure of 
happiness can never be attained. 



208 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

Work, then, is essential to life, but work is often 
carried to excess. With the laboring man it usually is. 
The interests of life are not all industrial. There are 
intellectual, artistic, social, and other interests. If these 
are to enter into life, there must be some freedom from 
toil. Leisure is as essential to life as work. Without 
leisure man is a slave. Continuous toil means existence, 
not life. Without some freedom, some spare time, a 
man is likely to be a stranger to literature, music, 
science, and art. When these are lacking, life is empty. 
Hence true living demands a shortening of the labor 
day, so that men may avail themselves of all the sources 
of enjoyment and happiness. 

Leisure, however, is only opportunity. If spent in 
idleness and dissipation, it degrades instead of enno- 
bling. It is a blessing only to those who know how to 
use it. Now the use of leisure depends on education. 
All men, therefore, should be educated so that they can 
use their leisure to promote their lives. There should 
be developed in them a love of nature, the power to 
appreciate and enjoy music and art, and a taste for good 
literature. With these the laborer has inexhaustible 
sources of happiness. His leisure is transmuted into 
strength. He is no longer a mere laborer ; he is a Man. 
And so the artist, as Emerson says, " when he has ex- 
hausted his materials, when the fancy no longer paints, 
when thoughts are no longer apprehended, and books 
are a weariness, — has always the resource to live.'' 



THE ULTIMATE END OF EDUCATION 209 

The spirit of the artist and artistic labor necessarily 
involve a love of the beautiful. Such love is a per- 
petual source of pleasure. Its gratification is, to a con- 
siderable extent, free to all. We cannot open our eyes 
upon field or forest or sky without having them flooded 
by beauty. Not to be able to appreciate it is certainly 
to fall far short of the possibilities of happiness. A 
love of the beautiful, with highly developed power of 
appreciation, is therefore necessary to the maximum of 
happiness. 

But neither the complete enjoyment of the esthetic 
sense, profitable leisure, effective work, nor health itself 
is possible without the material means of existence, 
that is, wealth. Wants without wealth means misery. 
Wealth is necessary to the satisfaction of our legitimate 
physical wants. Love of the beautiful demands wealth 
to bring us into contact with the beautiful. What a 
blessing it would be if all could share the knowledge of 
science, the beauty of the mountains and the sea, the 
dehghts of travel, the inspiration of historic places, and 
the glories of art as revealed in the great museums of 
the world ! This would be possible if all had wealth 
and leisure. Both, then, are indispensable elements in 
our conception of life. 

As to friendship, love, and a clear conscience, they 
are so obviously necessary to happiness that they need 
only be mentioned to complete the analysis. 

To live completely, then, is to live long, to enjoy 



2IO THE ART OF EDUCATION 

good health, to spend a portion of one's time in useful 
and healthful toil, to have a share of leisure for mental 
improvement and the enjoyment of the beauty of nature 
and art, to have a cultivated mind and the material 
means to gratify all legitimate wants, to have the com- 
panionship and sympathy of those we love, and a mind 
conscious of the right. These are the elements of com- 
plete living, the conditions of happiness, and they are 
all involved in the ultimate end of education. 

What an art, then, is education, which aims at the 
realization of life — fullness of life for each and for all. 
In its vital or individual aspect it seeks to create a per- 
fect human type with all the powers and possibilities 
of perfection. Socially it looks to the realization of an 
ideal humanity in which alone individual perfection is 
possible. The individual products are the material out 
of which is to be fashioned an ideal humanity, the 
Social Temple, a house not built with hands, whose 
foundations are laid in liberty and justice, whose altars 
are aflame with the sacred fire of love, and within whose 
walls the children of the future, surrounded by more 
congenial influences than perhaps we are as yet able to 
conceive, may develop the utmost possibilities of their 
being. 

The teacher, therefore, is both sculptor and architect, 
both mason and builder. Although aiming directly at 
the improvement of the individual type, he is indirectly 
engaged in the world-old task of building a better world. 



CHAPTER Xir 

THE ARTIST TEACHER 

And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche. — Chaucer. 

As we become better teachers we also become in some sort better per- 
sons. Our beautiful art, being so largely personal, will at last be seen to 
connect itself with many other employments. — Palmer. 

" Kunst macht gunst." 

I. An Artist Teacher. — In Tuscumbia, Alabama, in 
1880, there was born a Httle girl who, when she was eigh- 
teen months of age, through some affliction lost her eye- 
sight and her hearing. Deaf and blind, she was of course 
mute, and thus handicapped she began the pilgrimage 
of life. In the course of time she learned to read by 
the methods ordinarily employed in teaching the blind. 
She was not content with reading the English language ; 
she learned also French, German, and Itahan. She 
was sent away to a school in Boston. There she made 
the acquaintance of many distinguished men and women. 
She carried on a correspondence with Bishop Brooks. 
She was a petted favorite of Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
At his last public appearance, she stood by his side and 
recited Longfellow's "Psalm of Life." She had learned 
to speak as well as to read. 

Later on, this little girl expressed an interest in a college 
education. Her friends tried to dissuade her from under- 

211 



212 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

taking the work incidental to a college course, but she de- 
clared that what other girls had done she could do. She 
passed the entrance examination with credit, and pur- 
sued the work of the course successfully. She found 
time not only to prepare her lessons, but to write books 
and magazine articles. She prepared and published 
her autobiography, a book of great general interest and 
extremely important from a psychological point of view. 
She wrote another book on the subject of optimism. It 
would seem that if any one has a right to complain of 
her lot, an excuse even for discouragement and despair, 
it would be this girl. But she writes about optimism, and 
sings from out the cage of her severe affliction a note of 
hope to the world. Since her graduation, she has been 
writing articles for the Century Magazine and if her 
life is spared, there will perhaps be few women, even 
among those who have all their senses, who can match 
her in achievement. 

I am speaking, of course, of Helen Keller. Now 
what is this wonderful person, a genius independent of 
education, or a product of the art of education } Surely 
the latter, for no matter what her original possibilities 
may have been, they would not have unfolded of them- 
selves. Helen Keller cannot be understood without 
remembering that, very early in life, she was placed in 
charge of a skillful teacher who devoted practically all 
of her time to Helen's education. Miss Keller was no 
doubt gifted with genius, but it was imprisoned in a 



THE ARTIST TEACHER 213 

defective body. It was the privilege of a teacher, by 
means of the art of education, to free the spirit from its 
bondage, and to show to the world some of the possibil- 
ities that are open to one who is really an artist in the 
work of education. She is an example of the artist 
teacher. 

2. Requisites of the Artist Teacher. — One of the 
chief objects of this book has been to show the dignity, 
importance, and potential utility of the art of education. 
Education as an art has here been shown to rank, in 
these great and fundamental qualities, higher than any 
of the mechanical or the vital arts, and so above the 
" fine " arts. All this, however, has nothing to do with 
the teacher, except as it reveals possibilities and stimu- 
lates enthusiasm. The rank of the teacher does not 
depend upon the place that education holds among 
the arts, but upon the skill, intelligence, and devotion 
that the teacher himself applies. Possible utility deter- 
mines the rank of the art of education, but the teacher 
must rank in accordance with his efficiency in the prac- 
tice of the art. 

Now every teacher is, from the nature of his work, 
an artist, just as every laborer is an artist. He is an 
artist because he practices an art. And yet we are 
accustomed to reserve the word " artist " for appHcation 
to those who are specially skilled in some form of art. 
The primitive man who produced the rude carvings of 
prehistoric time on the bones of animals that are now 



214 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

extinct, was an artist, but an artist far removed from 
Raphael, Titian, Angelo, and the other great artists 
who produced the miracles of color in the museums of 
Europe. So every teacher is an artist ; but many are 
as far removed from the great teachers of the world as 
the cave dweller is from the skilled artists of ancient 
Rome. The great need of to-day, a need much greater 
than it seems to appear to the public, is a body of 
teachers who are artists in the special sense of that 
term. If the six hundred thousand teachers of the 
United States were genuine artists, progress in edu- 
cation would be by leaps and bounds, and the results 
of education would be far beyond anything that the 
public at present conceives. 

Now let us suppose that a teacher really wishes to 
become an artist in the work of teaching, what are the 
qualities it is necessary to cultivate ? Perhaps all of 
them might be summed up under the word " personal- 
ity," for it is a term vague enough to include almost any- 
thing. " To the problem of personality," says President 
Hyde, " the world has found five answers : the Epi- 
curean, the Stoic, the Platonic, the Aristotelian, and the 
Christian. The Epicurean says : ' Take unto your life 
as many simple, natural pleasures as possible.' The 
Stoic says: 'Keep out of your mind all causes of anxi- 
ety and grief.' The Platonist says : ' Lift up your soul 
above the dust and drudgery of daily life into the pure 
atmosphere of the perfect and the good.' The Aristo- 



THE ARTIST TEACHER 21$ 

telian says : ' Organize your life by clear conception of 
the end for which you are living, seek diligently all 
means that further this end, and rigidly exclude all that 
would hinder it or distract you from it.' The Christian 
says : * Enlarge your spirit to include the interests and 
aims of all the persons whom your life in any way 
affects.' 

" Any man or woman of average hereditary gifts, and 
ordinary scholarship and training, who puts these five 
principles into practice, will be a popular, effective, 
happy, and successful teacher. Any teacher, however 
well equipped otherwise, who neglects any one of these 
principles, will, to that extent, be thereby weakened, 
crippled, and disqualified for the work of teaching. 
Any person who should be found defective in the 
majority of these five requirements would be unfit to 
teach at all." ^ 

This any teacher will regard as a " pretty large 
order." Be perfect in all respects, and you will be a 
successful teacher ! It seems obvious enough, and yet, 
considering the fact that the opportunity to teach de- 
pends upon the judgment of school authorities and 
patrons who are by no means infallible, it may be 
doubted whether a teacher gifted with all the virtues 
that these principles imply could long hold a position 
in any of our schools. At all events, to be an ** artist " 

1 " The College Man and the College Woman," New York, 1906, pp. 
250-251. 



2l6 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

in teaching, and reasonably successful, it is not neces- 
sary to be perfect in all respects, however desirable and 
practical it may be to set up perfection as an ideal. 
All that we are interested in now is the recognition of 
the quaHties absolutely essential to constitute the artist 
in the work of teaching. 

Professor Palmer, in his book entitled "The Ideal 
Teacher," says that there are four qualities of so much 
importance to the teacher that with them he is sure to 
succeed and without any one of them he is almost sure 
to fail. These are : " (i) an already accumulated wealth 
of knowledge, (2) an aptitude for vicariousness, (3) the 
abihty to invigorate life through knowledge, and (4) a 
readiness to be forgotten." This brings us a little 
nearer to the point, but he, too, is discussing the "ideal 
teacher." However, in Professor Palmer's statement, 
we have a reduction of the essential qualities of the 
artist teacher from five to four. If we limit our con- 
ception to the necessary requisites, they may be reduced 
to three. A teacher who is gifted with health and vigor, 
which must always be assumed as the necessary basis 
of success, may become an artist in the work of education 
through the manifestation of these three qualities: (i) 
knowledge, (2) skill, and (3) interest, and not otherwise. 
Let us consider each one of these qualities somewhat at 
length. 

3. Knowledge. — An essential requisite of an artist of 
any kind is knowledge. It is impossible to succeed 



THE ARTIST TEACHER 217 

without it. As a rule, artists who have achieved fame 
have spent long years in arduous efforts to attain it. 
This makes untrue, in any complete sense, the idea that 
the artist is born, not made. No one is born with 
knowledge. It must be acquired. It is true that per- 
sons are born with, or early acquire, a bent toward some 
particular art or calling. But the artist is born and made, 
a product of nature and art. While it is true, then, that not 
every teacher can become a great artist, it is also true that 
every one can become a greater artist than he now is, 
and he can do this by the acquirement of more knowl- 
edge. 

The knowledge requisite in the art of teaching is both 
general and special. The necessity of special knowledge 
must be perfectly apparent. The teacher is frequently 
advised to make a careful preparation for the teaching 
of every lesson. This is a strong demand upon the 
time and attention of the rural teacher, for instance, 
who may have twenty-five or thirty lessons to present in 
the course of a day. But the advice is good, and for 
perfectly sound psychological and pedagogical reasons. 
The presentation of a lesson must have some definite end 
or object, otherwise it is not artistic effort at all. Art 
implies always a conscious purpose. To formulate the 
purpose of each lesson, the end that is to be reached, 
and then to devise the best methods of reaching that 
end requires, of course, the special preparation of each 
lesson. 



2l8 THE ART OF EDUCATION" 

The special preparation will be all the easier if there 
has been the proper general preparation. Of course a 
teacher must know the subject he teaches, unless he 
is content with the kind of teaching that characterizes 
some of our Sunday school instruction, in which the 
teacher must keep his finger on the answer to each 
question in order to avoid losing the place, and thus 
losing himself. A teacher should know his subject all 
around, its facts, and the relations of these facts to other 
facts. 

And this points to an implication that must not 
be overlooked. That is, that we cannot know one sub- 
ject thoroughly without knowing other subjects as well. 
All truth is one. We cannot pick up a single truth 
without lifting the entire warp and woof of knowledge. 
Only the All-knowing can have complete knowledge of 
any fact or subject. This is suggested in Tennyson's 
well-known lines : — 

V 

" Flower in the crannied wall, 

I pluck you out of the crannies, 
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if\ could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 

Observe that in the last line he uses a singular verb with 

a plural subject. He thus indicates, in this line, not 

only the unity of nature, but the unity of man and God. 

The idea here suggested with respect to truth and 



THE ARTIST TEACHER 219 

knowledge is in one aspect discouraging, because no one 
may hope to know all about any subject. The encour- 
aging feature of the matter lies in the fact that power 
in teaching may be increased indefinitely by an increase 
in knowledge. The conscious purpose of the teacher, 
then, should be to extend his knowledge as widely as 
possible. To do this he should proceed systematically. 
Desultory reading is to be condemned for the same 
reason that aimless teaching is condemned. To read 
merely for pastime betrays a woeful disregard of the 
value of time. The teacher should not spend a part of 
his time telling his classes how to study, and then neg- 
lect all method in his own study. He should take up 
some particular branch of knowledge, history, literature, 
natural science, or any subject to which he may incline, 
and study it intensively. I would recommend particularly 
a branch of natural science. The reason I do so is be- 
cause I beUeve that every teacher should acquaint himself 
with the scientific method. Read the books of the great 
scientists, observe their patience, their devotion to the 
truth, and their absolute disregard of all extraneous 
opinions and doctrines, no matter how hallowed by time. 
Take nothing for granted, accept nothing on faith, but 
subject every proposition presenting itself for your ac- 
ceptance to the cold, acid test of criticism. It is incon- 
sistent to maintain that we are divinely endowed with 
the faculty of reason, and then to pretend that this faculty 
is not to be exerted at all times and everywhere in the 



220 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

field of knowledge. The artist teacher must be a student, 
with the spirit of a student. That spirit is reverential, 
but at the same time critical. 

But there is another form of knowledge that must not 
be overlooked. The teacher who would be an artist 
must be acquainted with the general principles of educa- 
tion which, in the work of instruction, he endeavors to 
apply. These general principles are mainly psycholog- 
ical. The teacher must therefore be a student of psy- 
chology. I have heard teachers debate the subject as 
to whether it is necessary for the teacher to know any- 
thing of psychology. There are not two sides to that 
question. One might as well contend that to be success- 
ful in agriculture one needs to know nothing about the 
qualities of different kinds of soil, or of the laws of plant 
growth. It is true that the teacher need not be a 
speciahst in psychology. To be a specialist in any 
subject requires the devotion of practically all of 
one's time and energy. But the teacher needs to 
acquaint himself with the results of the studies of 
specialists in psychology. He may let others investi- 
gate ; it is his business to apply. By reading the works 
of those who have devoted years to investigation he may 
acquire a principle, perhaps in a few minutes, which it 
has cost months or perhaps years to discover and sub- 
stantiate. The value to the teacher of a study of psy- 
chology is thus expressed by Claparede : " Without 
doubt pedagogy is an art that demands above every- 



THE ARTIST TEACHER 221 

thing tact, delicacy, and a self-sacrifice that has noth- 
ing to do with scientific knowledge; and, in this sense, 
it is quite certain that a knowledge of psychology does 
not suffice for one who is to be a good educator. But 
if it does not suffice, it is none the less necessary, for an 
art is nothing but the realization of an end, an ideal, by 
appropriate means. It is, therefore, essential for the ar- 
tisan to have a thorough knowledge of the material with 
which he works, and the way to set about his work, if 
he would get from it the desired effect. Dare we deny, 
on the other hand, that a moderately deep knowledge of 
psychology enlarges the horizon of a teacher ; enlightens 
his view of matters, while giving him a greater confidence 
in himself and a greater authority toward others, com- 
bined with an open-mindedness toward methods, the 
effects of which will make themselves felt in a happy 
manner in tact, patience, and kindness toward the 
pupils ? " 

The necessary special knowledge, then, of a teacher 
leads inevitably to a knowledge of the principles upon 
which the art of education is based. He undertakes to 
control the development of mind and body. How can 
he be successful unless he is acquainted with the prin- 
ciples of bodily and mental development ? 

These principles are set forth in the science of 
psychology. But there is another science with which 
the teacher should be acquainted. It is the science of 
sociology. The teacher is charged with more than the 



222 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

development of the child. He is a social agent, 
employed for social purposes. He is a factor in the 
great educational system that is the main instrument 
of society in realizing its destiny. This makes it neces- 
sary for the teacher to understand the laws of social 
development as well as the laws of individual develop- 
ment. Sociology is the science that devotes itself to 
the discovery and exposition of these laws. The artist 
teacher must therefore be acquainted with the subject 
of sociology as well as that of psychology. 

The best place to acquire all this special knowledge 
should be the normal school. The normal school has 
not yet come into its own. By many people, even 
among those who ought to know better, it is supposed 
that normal training, while it may be a desirable form 
of preparation, is not essential to the success of a 
teacher. But normal training should be regarded as 
just as necessary for a teacher as a course in a medical 
school is necessary for a physician, or a course in law is 
necessary to a lawyer. It is merely because the public 
does not really recognize the importance of education 
that every teacher is not required to make special prep- 
aration in schools provided for that purpose before he 
undertakes the work of teaching. 

So much for the first requisite for the artist teacher. 
Let us now turn to the second. 

4. Skill. — Skill is a result of knowledge. It implies 
method, and method is the highest manifestation of 



THE ARTIST TEACHER 223 

intelligence. Unless you know how to do a thing, you 
cannot manifest skill in performing it. 

Now, skill in teaching is always a manifestation of a 
knowledge of the principles that underlie the art of 
education. Suppose it is a matter of instruction. Do 
you think a teacher would succeed in imparting knowl- 
edge if he wholly disregarded the simple principle of 
proceeding from the known to the related unknown } 
Certainly not. But what does that principle imply ? 
It implies the mode of the mind's operations in the ac- 
quirement of knowledge. The uninitiated may smile at 
the formidable word " apperception." They may think 
it is a term that is employed merely to give the impres- 
sion of profound knowledge. But whether we use the 
term or not, no one can succeed in teaching without ap- 
plying the principles based upon apperception. " Pro- 
ceed from the known to the related unknown " is a very 
simple injunction, but it is based upon a knowledge of 
the mind's power of apperceiving. If we want to know 
why we must proceed from the known to the related 
unknown, the answer is simply this : you cannot pro- 
ceed in any other way ! You can kill time, waste your 
efforts, and destroy the child's interest in knowledge by 
undertaking to proceed in disregard of this principle, 
but you get nowhere. Why ? Because the mind works 
in that manner, and it is just about as foolish for the 
teacher to disregard the manner in which the mind 
works as it would be to expect results from a machine 



224 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

of any kind operated without regard to the principles 
of its construction. 

The principle of which we are now speaking is a 
very simple one ; and yet observe how many other in- 
junctions hinge upon it. Why should ideas be pre- 
sented, as a rule, before words, processes before rules ? 
It is because the word and the rule are, in most cases, 
not the related but the unrelated unknown. If teachers 
could once see that the attempt to cram the mind of a 
child with words, definitions, and rules is a manifes- 
tation of gross ignorance, they would not be able 
to view the result of such teaching with satisfaction 
or self-complacency. Teachers derive a great deal of 
amusement from answers that their pupils make to 
the questions they propound. In nine cases out of 
ten the laugh is on the teacher, for the answer reflects 
the poor quality of the teaching. Take, for instance, 
the composition on Abraham Lincoln, written by a 
child who had been studying the subject of history. 
" Abraham Lincoln," he said, '* was born in Wales, in 
1599. His father was a wool comber, but Abraham 
didn't like that trade, so one day he was standing by 
the railroad and a man by the name of Giteau came up 
behind him and shot him." And then, with a child's 
disposition to moralize, he added, "but it was not nice 
of him because he shot him on the railroad." Now, in 
this composition there are fragmentary ideas with re- 
spect to several historical characters. It reveals plainly 



THE ARTIST TEACHER 225 

that, in the teaching, biographical facts had been pre- 
sented without regard to their relation to what the 
boy knew. His mind had been filled like a hopper 
with unrelated facts, and the result of the examination 
grind was this peculiar grist. 

Let any one recall his own experience in studying 
the various subjects, and then let him try to calculate 
the amount of his time that was wasted by the disre- 
gard on the part of the teacher of the laws of mental 
growth, and especially of this one principle: proceed 
from the known to the related unknown. In botany, 
for instance, how much of it has been wordmongering ! 
Children " love not the flowers they pluck, and all their 
botany is but Latin names." Fouillee gives an amus- 
ing illustration. "Here are two children," he says, 
" with a flower. One tells us that it is a gamopetalous 
dicotyledon ; family, borragineous ; name, myosotis an- 
nua. The other does not know all these names, but he 
admires it, loves it, and carries it to his mother. You 
give a good mark to the former and a kiss to the 
latter." Sentiment, in this case, is more than facts. 
The object of teaching in botany is not the names of 
flowers, but an interest in them. And it is the same 
with other subjects. 

To illustrate the absurdity of attempting to teach 
without a due regard for the principles of the mind's 
operations revealed to us by the study of psychology, 
let me present an illustrative lesson. In this lesson we 

Q 



226 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

will suppose that in the choice of a subject the teacher 
considers his own interest rather than that of his pupils. 
He has had a course at the university, we may sup- 
pose, and has there learned the great importance of 
the subject of evolution. So he begins the lesson 
with an endeavor to tell his class what evolution is. 
He recalls Mr. Spencer's definition in its concise form. 
So, perhaps, after a few preliminary remarks in regard 
to the importance of the subject, he tells them that 
" Evolution is a continuous change from an indefinite, 
incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent hetero- 
geneity, with accompanying differentiations and inte- 
grations." The successful presentation of this defini- 
tion produces in him a certain glow of satisfaction at the 
thought that his pupils must necessarily be impressed 
with the profundity of his knowledge; but he finds 
that, while they may wonder, they do not understand. 
So he tells them that at a later time Mr. Spencer for- 
mulated a simpler, more accurate definition of evolution, 
and he proceeds to give them that. " Evolution," he 
tells them, "is an integration of matter and a concomi- 
tant dissipation of motion; during which the matter 
passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a 
definite, coherent heterogeneity, and during which the 
retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation." 
Now surely they will understand it ! A pupil in whom 
the sense of humor is not highly developed may urge a 
further simplification. The teacher then recalls that 



THE ARTIST TEACHER 227 

the early definition of Mr. Spencer, namely, that ** Evo- 
lution is a change from an indefinite, incoherent homo- 
geneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, through 
continuous differentiations and integrations," was trans- 
lated, by the mathematician Kirkman, into what he 
called plain English. *' Evolution," he said, " is a 
change from a nohowish, untalkaboutable, all-alikeness, 
to a somehowish and in-generaltalkaboutable, not-all- 
alikeness, by continuous somethingelseifications, and 
sticktogetherations." If after this definition is pro- 
nounced there are those who still profess ignorance, the 
teacher will request them to remain after school and 
commit the definition to memory ! 

Would not such a lesson as this, presented, let us say, 
in a high school, seem ridiculously absurd } Well, it is 
not one whit more absurd than for a teacher to require 
a child to commit to memory the rule, say for long 
division, before he has carefully developed in its mind 
the process of which the rule is a description. For what 
is the result of rule cramming ? It is well illustrated by 
the answer of a boy who on being asked to give the 
rule for finding the number of square feet in a room, 
replied, " To find the number of square feet in a room, 
multiply the room by the number of square feet and 
the quotient will be the product." Such an answer 
makes us smile. But the teaching that results in such 
an answer makes the judicious grieve. 

We have now seen how the disregard of a principle 



228 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

of teaching may signify a lack of skill. Skill, then, we 
may infer, is but the successful application of the prin- 
ciples of education, and depends primarily upon a 
knowledge of these principles. 

5. Interest. — The third requisite of the artist teacher 
is a genuine interest in the work of the school. It 
is no more possible to succeed in teaching without 
enthusiasm for the work than it is to succeed in music, 
poetry, painting, sculpture, or the dramatic art without 
the spirit of the artist. 

An interest in his work is characteristic of every 
great artist. Watch the pianist as he performs before 
a cultured and critical audience. It is usually easy to 
see that he enjoys the performance as much as or more 
than anybody else. That is characteristic of the true 
artist : he delights himself more than others. 

Now, interest in the work of education may be 
acquired by those who do not have it. Conscientious 
work tends to beget interest, and interest in turn mani- 
fests itself in earnest work. The teacher who finds her 
work irksome, therefore, need not despair. The only 
state of hopelessness on the part of a teacher is the 
absence of a wish to become interested in the work of 
the school. 

It is sometimes deplored that there are so many 
women, especially young women, among the teachers 
of the country. A redeeming feature of this situation 
is that most women are naturally lovers of children. 



THE ARTIST TEACHER 229 

Their interest in child life covers a multitude of peda- 
gogical sins. If I had to choose between a teacher 
who is naturally sympathetic with children and inter- 
ested in their welfare, but who knows little, and another 
who cares nothing for children, but knows much, I 
should unhesitatingly choose the former. With interest 
in children, and the work necessary to the unfolding of 
their lives, all other qualities of the artist may be ob- 
tained, but the want of interest is a fatal defect. We 
may well emphasize the necessity of academic and pro- 
fessional training for the teacher. We can hardly over- 
estimate its importance. But a teacher may have a 
university education, may know the ancient and modern 
languages, may understand psychology, and, if interest be 
wanting, may still be a failure as a teacher. Paraphras- 
ing the language of St. Paul, we may say of the teacher 
that though he speak with the tongues of men and of 
angels and have not interest, so far as teaching is con- 
cerned he is as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal; 
and though he have the gift of prophecy, and under- 
stand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though 
he have all faith so that he could remove mountains, 
and have not interest, he is nothing. Interest manifests 
itself in love. Love suffereth long and is kind, envieth 
not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not be- 
have itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily 
provoked by the infirmities of the child, thinketh no evil, 
rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth ; bear- 



230 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

eth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, 
endureth all things for the sake of the child. But 
whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether 
there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there be 
knowledge, it shall vanish away ; but interest manifest- 
ing itself in love never fails. Like the genial light of 
the sun that draws forth from the plant its leaves, its 
flowers, and its fruit, so the warm, sympathetic interest 
of the teacher draws forth from the life of the child the 
flowers and the fruitage of a noble and beautiful human 
life. And now abideth knowledge, skill, interest ; these 
three, but the greatest of these is interest. 

6. Conclusion. — We have now reached the end of 
the discussion of education as an art. We have seen 
that it consists essentially in the control of the forces 
that push forward the child in his physical, mental, 
and moral development. These forces should be studied 
attentively. The more we learn of them the more eas- 
ily are they controlled. Any one who enters upon the 
work of the great art of education should wish at least 
to become acquainted with the character of the art 
and the methods of control that may be employed most 
successfully. Here as elsewhere, ignorance is the great 
sin. Anything may be forgiven in the teacher but un- 
wiUingness to learn. The study of an art so dignified, 
so capable of infinite possibilities, whose aim is the 
double object of perfect individuals and an ideal hu- 
manity, should be an inspiration to those who are privi- 



THE ARTIST TEACHER 23 1 

leged to practice it. A clear conception of the respon- 
sibilities involved in its practice would drive them, it 
would seem, either to study, or to a positive refusal to 
assume such responsibilities. 

In Rome, in the Church of St. Peter in Chains (San 
Pietro in Vincoli), is the marvelous statue of Moses, 
one of the three most famous works of Michel Angelo. 
The great lawgiver is represented as seated. His right 
knee is bare. In the marble of this knee is discernible 
a minute crack or flaw. In explanation the credulous 
are informed that when the statue was completed it 
looked to the sculptor so lifelike that he lifted up his 
mallet and struck it a blow on the knee, with the re- 
mark, " Speak, Moses ! " But Moses spake not. His 
lips were cold, glittering marble. No light of intelli- 
gence beamed from his sightless eyes. He was but the 
form, the image, of a man. But the product of the art- 
ist who labors in the field of education will speak by 
word and by act, and will exercise an influence for good 
or for evil as long as time shall last. 

MOLD WITH CARE 

I took a piece of plastic clay. 
And idly fashioned it one day ; 

And as my fingers pressed it, still 
It moved and yielded to my will. 

I came again when days were past, 
The bit of clay was hard at last. 



.232 THE ART OF EDUCATION 

The form I gave it still it bore, 

And I could change that form no more. 

I took a piece of living clay, 

And gently formed it day by day, 

And molded with my power and art 
A young child's soft and tender heart. 

I came again when years were gone, 
It was a man I looked upon. 

He still that early impress bore. 

And I could change him — nevermore. 



INDEX 



Absent-mindedness, i86, et seq. 
Action, 39, 66, 131, IS3- 
Actions, 43, 45- 
Activity, 40, 41, 129. 
Adams, quoted, 103. 
Adversity, 202. 
Agnostic, 205. 
Agriculture, 12, 13. 
Alexander, 159, 160, 163. 
Allegri, G., 76. 
Ambition, 161. 
Ambitions, youthful, 106. 
Angelo, Michel, 24, 214, 231. 
Apollo Belvedere, 23. 
Apperception, 223. 
Approval, 118. 
Archimedes, 187. 
Architecture, 3, 10. 
Arithmetic, 98, 176. 
Arnold, Benedict, 148. 
Art, 2, 5, 10, 30, 97. 
Artisan, 10. 
Artist, 21, 207, 209, 211, 213, 

seq. 
Arts, the, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14, 

20, 21, 30, 34» 36. 
Association, 113. 
Astronomy, 7. 
Attention, 68, et seq. 

Bacon, Francis, 186. 
Balzac, H., quoted, 204. 
Barnes, Earl, 108. 
Beautiful, the, 199, 209. 
Beauty, 4, 12. 
Belief, 140. 
Bible, 138, 158, 177- 
Binet, J. P., quoted, 108. 
Biography, 149. 
Biology, 7. 
Books, 174. 



Boston, 152, 170. 

Botany, 225. 

Boy and dwarf, 171. 

Boy problem, 81. 

Bradley, J., 181. 

Breeding, 15. 

Brewster, E. T., quoted, 124. 

" Broadcloth mob," 152. 

Brooks, Bishop, 210. 

Buckle, Thomas, quoted, 184. 

Burbank, Luther, 13. 

Burr, Aaron, 148. 

Burritt, Elihu, 178. 

Burroughs, John, 16. 

Byron, Lord, 120. 



Caesar, 160, 163. 

CanidcB, 16. 

Cavendish, H., 181. 

Century Magazine, 212. 

Change, 27, 29. 

Character, 55, iS4- 
215, et Chaucer, G., quoted, 211. 

Chemistry, 7, 34. 
17, 18, Chicago, 170. 

Choate, Rufus, 175. 

Choice, 204. 

"Choir Invisible " (poem), 165. 

Church, the, 138, et seq. 

Church of St. Peter in Chains, 231. 

Cicero, quoted, i, 186. 

City, the, 196. 

Claparede, Ed., quoted, 67, 96, 97, 
no. 

Clement XIV, 77- 

Cleveland, city of, 172. 

Clothing, 144- 

Comenius, J. A., quoted, 122. 

Community, the, 141, et seq. 

Compayre, J. G., quoted, 38. 

Competition, 112. 

233 



234 



INDEX 



Complete living, 206, 2og. 

Complexity, 7, 8. 

Compulsion, 89. 

Comte, Auguste, quoted, 7. 

Consciousness, 49. 

Cormack, Rev. John, 159. 

Cox, Kenyon, 97. 

Cramming, 224. 

Culture epoch theory, 155. 

Curriculum, 182. 

Cyrus the Great, 74. 

Darwin, Charles, 15, 27, 57, 119, 120, 

183. 
David, statue of, 24. 
Davidson, Thomas, quoted, 147. 
Davy, Sir Humphry, 116. 
De Garmo, Charles, 62, 
Degeneracy, 126. 
Derby, the, 198. 
Descartes, Rene, 187. 
Desire, 51, 52, 53, i77- 
Dewey, John, quoted, 62, 87, 94, 144. 
Dickens, Charles, quoted, 60, 174. 
Diogenes, 159, 160. 
Discipline, 80, et seq., 179. 
Doane, Bishop, quoted, 25. 
Domestication, 14. 
Domestic science, 197. 
Don Quixote, 22. 
Doubt, 184. 
Drawing, 117. 
Drudgery, 96, 100, loi. 
Dryden, John, quoted, 104. 
Duty, 98. 
Dying Gaul, the, 23. 

Education, i, 17, 20, 21, 24, 26, 36, 37, 
38, 39, 40, 42, S3, 67, 87, 129, 210. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 124, 125. 

Effort, 91. 

Eichholz, A., 126. 

Eliot, George, 164, 166. 

Elizabeth, Queen, 203. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 4, 13, 116, 117, 
167, 182, 183, 186, 193, 202, 208. 

Emotions, 43, 46, 48, 49. 

Environment, the, 65, 123, 127, et seq., 

144, 153- 
Ethics, 138. 
Etiquette, 195. 



Eugenics, 123. 
Evolution, 226. 
Excursion, 63. 
Experience, 156, 189. 

Fact, 225. 

Factors, 123, 129. 

Fame, 160. 

Feeling, 50, 90. 

Feelings, the, 43, 46, 49. 

Fellowes, Sir Charles, 116, 

Fenelon, F., 159. 

Feuerbach, Ludwig, 130. 

Fiske, John, quoted, 14. 

" Flower in the Crannied Wall," 218. 

Food, 44. 

Force, 32. 

Forces, 33, 37, 41. 

Fouillee, A., quoted, 225. 

France, 163. 

France, Anatole, quoted, 103. 

French, the, 115. 

Friendship, 209. 

Froebel, Friedrich, quoted, 167. 

Fundamentals, 173. 

Galatea, 23. 

Galileo, 180, 183. 

Galvani, 180. 

Games, 90. 

Garfield, James A., 178. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, quoted, 152. 

German, 115, 179. 

Gibbon, Edward, 177. 

Gibson, John, 116. 

Gladstone, W. E., 19, 174, 187. 

Goethe, 121, 204. 

Gordy, J. P., quoted, 147. 

Government, 18, 19. 

Gravity, 129. 

Gray, Thomas, 120. 

"Great Stone Face," 153. 

Greeley, Horace, 152, 175. 

GulUver, 198. 

Haeckel, Ernst, quoted, 135. 

Happiness, 194, 202. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 153. 

Health, 172, 173, 207. 

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 188. 

Herbart, Johann Friedrich, 64, 65, 86. 



INDEX 



235 



Herbartians, 201. 

Heredity, 123, et seq. 

Hero-worship, 155. 

Hertz, Heinrich, 180. 

History, 149, 163. 

Holmes, O. W., 211. 

Home, the, 136, et seq. 

Home-making, 18. 

Horticulture, 12, 22, 35. 

Humanities, the, 135. 

Huyghcns, Christian, 180. 

Hyde, William De Witt, quoted, 214. 

Ideal, the, 144, 168. 

Ideals, 14s, et seq. 

Ideas, 146. 

Idleness, 192. 

Ignorance, 126. 

Imitation, 109, 131. 

Incarnation, 205. 

Industrial plant, 103. 

IngersoU, R. G., quoted, 161, 205. 

Instincts, 105. 

Institutions, 133. 

Interest, 53, 57. ^t seq.; as means to 

success, 228, et seq. 
Invention, 34. 
Irrigation, 35. 

James, Professor William, quoted, 40, 
46, 71, 72, 73, 79, 91, 92, 99, 100, 107, 
113- 

Jean Valjean, 22. 

Jena, 188. 

Jesus, 151. 

Jukes Family, 124, 125, 127. 

Keller, Helen, 212. 
Kirkman, quoted, 227. 
Kitten, 90. 

Knowledge, 135, 178; as means to 
success, 216, et seq. 

Labor, 192, et seq. 
Labor problem, the, 200. 
Language, 5, 135. 
Laocoon, 23. 
Laputans, 198. 
Legislation, 36. 
Leisure, 208. 
Life, 61, 65, los, 159, 202. 



Lincoln, A., 19, quoted, 151, 152; 

composition on, 224. 
Literature, 22. 
Locke, John, 43, 186. 
Longevity, 206. 
Longfellow, H. W., 211. 
Longing, 153. 
Love, 209. 
Love-making, 196. 
Lowell, J. R., 144, 151, 177, 224. 
Lubbock, Sir John, quoted, 177. 

Machine, 9. 

Machinofacture, 10. 

Man, 4, 9. 

Manners, 195. 

Manufacture, 10. 

Mathematics, 7. 

Matter, 5, 6. 

Maxwell, Clerk, 180. 

McMurry, C. A., quoted, 67, 84, 96. 

Memory, 76, et seq. 

Metempsychosis, 205. 

Method, 131. 

Mill, J. S., quoted, 26, loi. 

Miller, Hugh, 177. 

Milton, John, 120. 

Mithridates, 74. 

Modeling, 117. 

"Mold with Care" (poem), 231. 

Montaigne, quoted, 189. 

Moral training, 93. 

Moses, statue of, 231. 

Mother Country, 151. 

Mother love, 100. 

Mother tongue, 189. 

Mozart, 76. 

Mummies, 179. 

Music, 5, II. 

Napoleon, 160, et seq. 
Napoleonic wars, 163. 
Narrowness, 120. 
Natural Science, I35- 
Nature, 30, 63. 
Negroes, 138. 
Newton, Sir Isaac, 187. 
Normal schools, 222. 
Norton, Charles Eliot, 121. 
Notoriety, 160. 
Nurture, 124. 



236 



INDEX 



Occupations, 4. 
Octagon, 170. 
Omnipotence, 204. 
O'Shea, M. V., quoted, 114. 
Ostermann, quoted, 84. 
Othello, 80. 

Painting, 5, 11, 21. 

Palmer, Professor G. H., quoted, 210, 

216. 
Parker, Colonel Francis, quoted, i. 
Parrhasius, 11. 
Parthenon, the, 5. 
Parties, social, 142. 
Patriotism, 194. 

Pearson, Karl, quoted, 180, 185. 
Pericles, 19. 
Persecution, 184. 
Personality, 214. 
Phenomena, 5, 7, 29, 31, 37. 
" Phenomenology of Spirit," 188. 
Physics, 7, 34. 
Physiology, 7. 
" Pilgrim's Progress," 177. 
Plato, 150, 160. 
Play, 87, ei seq., 118. 
Plutarch, 150, 160. 
Pope, A., quoted, 105, 190. 
Praxiteles, 11. 
Preyer, 108. 
Prize-giving, 112. 
Profanity, 191. 
Protagoras, 4. 
Psychology, 220. 
Pygmalion, 23. 

Qualitative element of life, 206. 
Quantitative element of life, 203. 

Raphael, 214. 

Reading, 174, 219. 

Rebellion, the, 151. 

Religion, 140, 200. 

Republic, Plato's, 150. 

Retention, 77. 

Ribot, T. A., 70. 

Riches, 158. 

Righteousness, 200. 

Rivalry, 112. 

Rome, 214, 231. 

Rousseau, J. J., quoted, 56, 207. 



R's, the three, 173, 176. 
Ruskin, John, 158, 192. 

Sanitation, 42. 

Savonarola, 161. 

School, the, 38, 97, 104, 133, et seq. 

Schurman, J. G., quoted, 56. 

Science, 148, 219. 

Sciences, the, 17. 

Scipio, 74. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 174, 187, 189. 

Sculpture, 11, 23. 

"Sculptors of Life" (poem), 25. 

Self, the, 100, 118. 

Self-denial, 92. 

Self-improvement, 121. 

Sensation, 46, 49, 50. 

Sentiment, 225, 

Service, 164. 

Shakespeare, 17, 27, 86, 97, loi, 120, 

140, 177, 180, 181, 190, 197, 206, 

226. 
Shaw, 108. 
Sistine Madonna, 5. 
Skill, 89, 222, et seq. 
Slang, 191. 
Sleep, 44. 

Smiles, Samuel, quoted, 152. 
Social Ideal, 151. 
Social-physics, 7. 
Socials, 142. 1! 
Social Temple, 210. 
Society, 45, 63, 64. 
Sociology, 7, 221. 
Socrates, i, 183, 187. 
Somerville, Lord, 15. 
South, the, 151. 
Spargo, John, 126. 
Spelling, 115. 

Spencer, 6, 44, 46, 49, 86, 177. 
State, the, 140, et seq. 
Statesmanship, 18, 19. 
Stevenson, R. L., 174. 
St. Francis, 161. 
St. Louis, city of, 171. 
St. Paul, 229. 
" St. Ronan's Well," 189. 
Success, 157. 
Suggestion, 131. 
Suicide, 203. 
Sunday School, 218. 



INDEX 



237 



Tanner, Amy, quoted, 108, 109. 

Tarde, Gabriel, quoted, 10. 

Teacher, the, 23, 24, 103, iig, 133, 134. 

142, 210, 211, et seg. 
Teaching, 23. 
Tennyson, A., 130, 218. 
Themistocles, 74. 
Theosophist, 204. 
Thinking, 182, et seq. 
Thought, 46, 77, 182. 
Time, 203. 
Titian, 214. 

Tolstoi, Leo, 183, 190, 192. 
Tomb of Napoleon, 161. 
Training, 16, 
Travel, 174, 209. 
Truth, 185. 

Ulysses, 130. 
Union, the, 152. 
Use, 114. 
Utility, 4, IIS, 179. 

Valjean, Jean, 22. 
Valley Forge, 151. 
Venus de Milo, 23. 



Viciousness, in. 
Visitation, school, 136, 137. 
Vocational training, 192, 197. 
Volition, 92. 

Ward, Lester F., quoted, 7, 26, 29, 50, 

122. 
Washington, Booker T., 138. 
Washington, George, 151. 
Watt, James, 187. 
Wealth, 158, 209. 
Webster, Daniel, 175. 
Weed, Thurlow, 75. 
Werther, 22, 
White House, the, 178. 
Will, the, 78, et seq., 91, 93. 
Will to live, the, 203. 
Women teachers, 228. 
Wordsworth, William, 106, 120, 205. 
Work, 90, 99, 191, 207. 
Writing, 117, i75- 
Wundt, Wilhelm, quoted, 40. 

Xanthus, 116. 

Youth, 156. 



THE following pages contain advertisements of a 
few of the Macmillan publications on Education 



1 



A Brief Course in the Teaching Process 
By GEORGE DRAYTON STRAYER 

Professor of Educational Administration, Teachers College, 
Columbia University 

Clothy J2m0y xiv + 31^ pages, $i.2j net 

This new book by Professor Strayer meets the great and very real 
need for a teacher's professional book of "Theory and Practice," 
which, though full of meat, can be read in those " marginal minutes " 
which are all that a very large number of teachers have for reading. 

Professor Strayer has had in mind not so much the specialist as 
(i) the young teacher, who needs to get much help in a short time; 
(2) the teacher with limited training to whom every schoolroom 
problem is mountainous, and (3) the overworked teacher who de- 
sires to keep abreast of the world in her profession, but has not time 
to wade through morasses of display stock of pedagogical " wisdom." 
For example : The Chapter on " Study " offers more in a few pages 
than some entire books of hundreds of pages devoted to the topic. 

The ever troublesome questions of inductive and deductive teaching 
are made clear as crystal in two brief chapters. Teachers who have 
studied whole books on these topics only to be befogged will be sur- 
prised at their simplicity as given here. 

The Learning Process 

By STEPHEN SHELDON COLVIN, Ph.D 

Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois 

Cloth, 121710, XXV + 336 pages, $1.2^ 

In the multitude of books on psychology here is at last one that meets 
the teacher's needs; truly a rara avis among books. 

It is not sensational, and it does not make large claims to originality, 
but it is scholarly. It gives the latest contributions to the subject, 
and in so far as is possible in a book, aids the teacher by making 
clear the processes of the learning mind, and showing how to take 
advantage of them. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 

By HERMAN HARRELL HORNE, Ph.D. 

Professor of the History of Philosophy and of the History of Educatiort, 
New York University 

Cloth, 8vo, xvii + 2QS Po-g^s, $1.50 net 
A connected series of discussions on the foundations of education in the re- 
lated sciences of biology, physiology, sociology, and philosophy, and a thor- 
oughgoing interpretation of the nature, place, and meaning of education in 
our world. The newest points of view in the realms of natural and mental 
science are applied to the understanding of educational problems. The field 
of education is carefully divided, and the total discussion is devoted to the 
philosophy of education, in distinction from its history, science, and art. 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

By HERMAN HARRELL HORNE, Ph.D. 

Cloth, i2mo, xiii + 435 pages, $1.75 net 
The relationship of this book to the author's " Philosophy of Education " is 
that, whereas the first was mostly theory with some practice, this is mostly 
practice with some theory. This volume lays the scientific foundations for the 
art of teaching so far as those foundations are concerned with psychology. 
The author is the "middleman " between the psychologist and the teacher, 
taking the theoretical descriptions of pure psychology and transforming them 
into educational principles for the teacher. In the Introduction the reader 
gets his bearings in the field of the science of education. The remainder of 
the book sketches this science from the standpoint of psychology, the four 
parts of the work, Intellectual Education, Emotional Education, Moral Edu- 
cation, and Religious Education, being suggested by the nature of man, the 
subject of education. A special feature is the attention paid to the educa- 
tion of the emotions and of the will. 

IDEALISM IN EDUCATION 

Or First Principles in the Making of Men and Women 
By HERMAN HARRELL HORNE, Ph.D. 

Author of " The Philosophy of Education " and " The Psychological Principles 

of Education " 

Cloth, i2mo, xxi -\- 183 pages, index, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.34 
Professor Home here discusses three things which he regards as funda- 
mental in the building of human character, — Heredity, Environment, and 
Will. His method of handling these otherwise heavy subjects makes the 
book of interest, even to the general reader. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



A History of Education before 
the Middle Ages 

BY 
FRANK PIERREPONT GRAVES, Ph.D. 

Professor of the History of Education in the Ohio State University 



Clothj i2mOj $1.10 net 



This book gives a comprehensive account of the history of education 
before the day of the monastic schools. It presents sufficient material 
to mark the most significant movements and discloses the underlying 
principles without entering into unnecessary detail. All interpretations 
are based upon historical data collected from the sources, and direct 
quotation is liberally used throughout. 

" Professor Graves has taken the method of procedure, at once most natural 
and most philosophical, of studying each stage with a view to progress." 

— The Outlook. 

" A book which gives evidence on every page of ripe scholarship, breadth 
of view, and keen discrimination between significant things and mere detail." 

— The School Review. 

" Professor Graves does well to give the profession the fruit of his abundant 
knowledge in a scholarly text-book and reference work, complete without be- 
ing tedious, condensed without being lifeless." — Journal of Education, 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenuo Kew Tork 



History of Education during the Middle Ages 
and the Transition to Modern Times 

By frank PIERREPONT GRAVES, Ph.D. 

Professor of the History of Education in the Ohio State University 

Cloth J i2mo, $1.10 net 

This volume is a continuation of the " History of Education 
before the Middle Ages." Without dwelling upon matters re- 
motely related to the educational problems of to-day, an accurate 
picture is afforded of educational history between the sixth and 
the eighteenth centuries. The sources are extensively quoted, 
and selected lists of supplementary reading are given at the end 
of each chapter. The book is suitable as a text or a work of ref- 
erence. 

''In the same spirit of careful research and open-minded discussion 
that marked the first part of his work." — The Independent. 

" The present volume is not only as good as, but better than, the pre- 
vious one. The work is conspicuous among histories of education as 
one of the most complete and interesting." 

— Journal of Educational Psychology. 

" He has made of dry historical facts a narrative full of interest, one 
that touches the life, politics, religion, and philosophy of the times." 

— Pedagogical Seminary. 



A History of Education during Modern Times 

By frank PIERREPONT GRAVES, Ph.D. 

Professor of the History of Education in the Ohio State University 

In continuation of the two preceding volumes, this work will 
cover the history of education from the days of Rousseau and the 
French Revolution to the present time. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New Tork 



OCT 3 19J2 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 







9 81 



1 363 3 



III 






i! ! Illi! 






